this is actual reserves, physical commodity acquisition, real supply vs. petrodollars vs. Euros, etc. China is making deals all over the globe on actual physical supply.
Oil is paid for in U.S. dollars (aka petro-dollars). As the value of the dollar decreases, oil costs increase - an inverse relationship.
Ergo, if the U.S. dollar is devalued in order to monetize debt, oil is a hedge.
This is an amazing story, regardless of bail out, CIT is still planning bankruptcy. Calculated Risk is covering it and seems to be really watchdogging the latest on CIT.
(probably for the very reasons you point out middle).
waiting for the dust to settle. But so far what I see is private insurance companies protecting their profits at all costs. The reality is they could easily reduce costs, massively, which do not affect choice or quality of care, access to care in the least! But they won't remove all of those bastards making huge bucks off of sick people.
Just look at lab tests as an example. It's absurd, with technology one could easily make those very cheap and accessible....yet "interests" won't do that.
Paperwork, it's insane, even billing is beyond belief complex, again to protect a lot of "interests".
Then you have MDs who refuse to treat anyone on either Medicaid or Medicare. That should be plain illegal.
The list goes on and on and on but we don't hear any of this, we hear "on that's socialist" or "we need reform now" when the reality is it's a rigged game, antiquated nightmare system and it's the system itself that needs a complete overhaul and that does not imply one has to go to any of these solutions....
so I don't see this details being discussed, only the single payer, not for profit people are.
while you're right we sure should be as many others are saying, regardless, one ain't gonna stop oil being a strategically critical commodity any time soon.
Yeah, and this is almost completely under reported, as are most of China's latest moves.
Even when they have hearings on it....they don't even put up a video on CSPAN, never mind "advertise" it, you have to really dig into government resources to find reports!
Starting in 1974, I lived for thirteen years in CA. Way back then, when I saw the voting ballot printed in 7 different languages, creating multiple - multiple pages, I knew CA liked to waste money.
I'm still reading the Health Bill. I have not found anything to prevent someone from gaming the system. If all people must be given insurance, I have yet to see anything to prevent moral hazard.
Example: If a family of 4 have an income of $40,000 a year, if they choose not to buy insurance (public or private) they would get an 8% tax fine. That would be a $3,200 tax fine.
Now I doubt if even a public plan can offer to cover a family of 4 for $3,200 a year. So the above person would make out by just paying a fine. When they get the cancer diagnosis, they go to (public or private) insurance and the insurance plan will need to pay out a possible $100,000 or more. Hm?
I've done some quoting on the Swiss site that gives quotes if you are a Swiss resident. I can tell you that a family of three costs from 7,886.40 CHF to 14,808.00 CHF a year ($300 ded. per incident). Quotes are based on living near Geneva. IF I want a hospital covered outside my Canton (like our States) or want a choice such as doctor, you need to add on supplemental insurance. Many Swiss people pay the "top up" supplementary insurance.
Or better yet, if you are someone living under the radar, the drug dealer, the illegal alien, etc. you wouldn't even be paying a fine. So when they get the cancer diagnosis, they waltz in to an insurance company, plop down a months premium and say.....start paying my bills.
We are living in a world where the elected officials are crazy!
Seems that the elected officials have no need to care about the money of working people.
On many levels even national security. But it doesn't matter as long as MNC get what they want and China get what it wants the rest of us are screwed.
I am becoming very worried about this. One obvious way to prevent this is to move very quickly to energy independence. Energy independence should be our "World War" that brings us out of this "Great Recession".
I've noted this also that China is clearly out to remove the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, they are buying up commodities like mad, including oil (I hope more people read this one I wrote up on China buying up oil reserves around the globe), and also seemingly trying to do it so they don't get stuck with a lot of junk U.S. debt.
California is a world unto itself. If someone is illegal, they will assuredly get state assistance, if someone is desperate, elderly or disabled, it's guaranteed they will get screwed. Teach in Spanish but screw the homeless and so on. I saw the "deal" on the budget and it is so ridiculous, a lot of accounting tricks, screwing the poor, those with the least political clout and ignore the $10.5 billion paid yearly on illegal immigrants and ignore the political favors, paybacks and other government bloat and of course they can't raise any taxes even though their property taxes just imploded.
The real need for CA is a new constitution. They have to do something to break that political cronyism, 2/3rd majority to do anything log jam.
Those results are in the current ones. I believe we have some posts on executive compensation reform and esp. how it rewards poor behavior, bad corporate decisions and I think we need to keep it up. 33% of all income! I went looking for the actual worker population percentage this is, i.e. 5000 executives vs. 66M workers or whatever it is but couldn't quickly find that data.
But...one of the reasons I am such a Gomory fan is he (so does Paul Samuelson, many) show, with good old fashioned equations from economics....precisely why your conclusion is correct.
I have not added any sort of equation display code on EP. I started to look into it and I will add if others, besides myself want to utilize it. I have a tendency to translate anything heavy into some wild outrage opinion, layman's persons, "bloggerspeak" but we certainly could start just posting some of the more Academic research and point out what it really says.
Apparently the State workers are not getting paid, are not laid off but must show up to work.
On the other hand all Welfare / WIC / Food Stamps are still being paid.
So let me see if I have this correct.
People working are not getting paid.
People not working are getting paid.
Have I fallen down the rabbit hole?
"Plans were made to help thousands of state employees weather payless paydays. Employee health benefits aren't affected. Neither are state welfare and pension payments."
Income inequality + Financialization + Globalization = Destruction of the Middle Class
Income inequality - your graph show this.
Financialization - the increase size and position of financial assets and financial sector in the economy.
Globalization - free flow of trade, capital and jobs from one country to another.
This equation is based on these view points: Here and Here
This quote from one of the above viewpoints summarizes the destruction of the Middle Class very well:
The increased wealth at the top was combined with an absence of real economic growth in the middle. Real median wage in the United States has been stagnant for twenty five years, despite an almost doubling of GDP per capita. About one-half of all real income gains between 1976 and 2006 accrued to the richest 5 percent of households. The new “gilded age” was understandably not very popular among the middle classes that saw their purchasing power not budge for years. Middle class income stagnation became a recurrent theme in the American political life, and an insoluble political problem for both Democrats and Republicans. Politicians obviously had an interest to make their constituents happy for otherwise they may not vote for them. Yet they could not just raise their wages. A way to make it seem that the middle class was earning more than it did was to increase its purchasing power through broader and more accessible credit. People began to live by accumulating ever rising debts on their credit cards, taking on more car debts or higher mortgages. President George W. Bush famously promised that every American family, implicitly regardless of its income, will be able to own a home. Thus was born the great American consumption binge which saw the household debt increase from 48 percent of GDP in the early 1980s to 100 percent of GDP before the crisis.
Maybe, I should submit this equation to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Na. I'll just keep repeating it and maybe soon it will sink in.
I've had similar questions. How, for example, can a USINPAC, which is Indians with U.S. citizenship, really lobbying for the interests of India and Indian companies, plain be allowed? It's like some of these organizations just use citizenship as a ticket to lobby for foreign interests and I believe Israel and a host of other foreign national have K-street lobbyists for our Congress as well.
We don't know yet if Hillary traded even more U.S. jobs to India yet but I'm wondering.
and a very good thing to look at, this quarterly driven slash and burn of employees that goes on, driven by corporate executive bonuses and temporary stock prices.
Brilliant column, along with the other column from midtowng on Americans saving, etc.
Heard Matt Taibbi at top form the other night in a radio interview along with some incoherent and rambling fellow from Greenwich Associates, Charley Ellis, a 30-year consultant for Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Ellis went on and on about "stubbing one's toe on the furniture," and other incoherent drivel. He repeated that Goldman "was forced to take TARP funds" - no mention of how Goldman Sachs became the fastest bank holding company on record, without the usual waiting period.
Ellis also said "..we are all guilty." Curious, we lost our jobs and have experienced a rapidly shrinking quality of life, while he and his group have walked away with billions. Nope, I'm pretty sure I'm not among the guilty - to the contrary, I'm with that group who has been diligently and actively fighting against the ongoing fraud.
Now Rivlin is also with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bretton Woods Committee (lobby group for the ultra-rich) and a signatory on that Bretton Woods Committee letter (dated Feb. 11, 2009) which removed the "Buy American" clause from the federal stimulus package. Interestingly, so is Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who just returned from China.
Now, since this constitutes politicking on behalf of offshoring American jobs, and Dr. Gates has, I am given to believe, received money from China, he is required under federal law to be a registered foreign agent (F.A.R.A.).
Now this is especially interesting as some of the other signatories happen to be members of the Obama Administration, and have, in the past, received money from China or India. This would include Richard C. Holbrooke, Diana Farrell, Laura Tyson (and Henry Kissinger should he still be President Obama's special envoy to Russia).
Therefore, they should all be registered foreign agents.
Of course, I (like many other of my fellow Americans, I suspect) did NOT vote for President Obama to offshore as many American jobs as possible - nor do I wish his appointees to be actively involved in such!
And lest we forget, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech in India (not her last one, but the second to the most recent one) which gave the strong impression that she was explaining that more Americans would be laid off and that India could expect further offshored jobs to their country from America!
I assume Secretary Clinton, as she received campaign contributions from India, is also a registered foreign agent - or in violation of federal law!
Hormats played a crucial role in a 2000 Goldman Sachs deal that was fervently opposed by religious groups and human rights advocates and later cited by the SEC as an example of illegal market manipulation: the $3 billion initial public offering of PetroChina, a company with ties to Sudan’s genocidal regime.
"Move along there is nothing to see here." That is what the financial oligarchy would like us to believe as they continue to reap the benefits of cheap credit provided by taxpayers
You can start hearing the whiffs of talk about the resilience of the markets. Ha. Ha. Fundamentally, nothing has changed but the massive trading profits of the financial conglomerates.
I am working on a post about how all the earning reports are meeting expectation but what is being overlooked is how these companies meeting expectation: cost cutting. Cost cutting, while necessary, is not sustainable over the long haul and unless demand picks up high stock valuations will not be justified.
I have been wondering for months how it was possible that the "savings rate" could be increasing at the same time that personal income in shrinking because of job losses. I hope and expect that you have posted this in other places.
Now, this could be a function of, as Robert said above, that foreclosures are forcing this decrease. But revolving credit went from $960.9 billion in December 2008 to $928 billion in May 2009
this is actual reserves, physical commodity acquisition, real supply vs. petrodollars vs. Euros, etc. China is making deals all over the globe on actual physical supply.
Oil is paid for in U.S. dollars (aka petro-dollars). As the value of the dollar decreases, oil costs increase - an inverse relationship.
Ergo, if the U.S. dollar is devalued in order to monetize debt, oil is a hedge.
This is an amazing story, regardless of bail out, CIT is still planning bankruptcy. Calculated Risk is covering it and seems to be really watchdogging the latest on CIT.
(probably for the very reasons you point out middle).
waiting for the dust to settle. But so far what I see is private insurance companies protecting their profits at all costs. The reality is they could easily reduce costs, massively, which do not affect choice or quality of care, access to care in the least! But they won't remove all of those bastards making huge bucks off of sick people.
Just look at lab tests as an example. It's absurd, with technology one could easily make those very cheap and accessible....yet "interests" won't do that.
Paperwork, it's insane, even billing is beyond belief complex, again to protect a lot of "interests".
Then you have MDs who refuse to treat anyone on either Medicaid or Medicare. That should be plain illegal.
The list goes on and on and on but we don't hear any of this, we hear "on that's socialist" or "we need reform now" when the reality is it's a rigged game, antiquated nightmare system and it's the system itself that needs a complete overhaul and that does not imply one has to go to any of these solutions....
so I don't see this details being discussed, only the single payer, not for profit people are.
while you're right we sure should be as many others are saying, regardless, one ain't gonna stop oil being a strategically critical commodity any time soon.
Yeah, and this is almost completely under reported, as are most of China's latest moves.
Even when they have hearings on it....they don't even put up a video on CSPAN, never mind "advertise" it, you have to really dig into government resources to find reports!
Starting in 1974, I lived for thirteen years in CA. Way back then, when I saw the voting ballot printed in 7 different languages, creating multiple - multiple pages, I knew CA liked to waste money.
I'm still reading the Health Bill. I have not found anything to prevent someone from gaming the system. If all people must be given insurance, I have yet to see anything to prevent moral hazard.
Example: If a family of 4 have an income of $40,000 a year, if they choose not to buy insurance (public or private) they would get an 8% tax fine. That would be a $3,200 tax fine.
Now I doubt if even a public plan can offer to cover a family of 4 for $3,200 a year. So the above person would make out by just paying a fine. When they get the cancer diagnosis, they go to (public or private) insurance and the insurance plan will need to pay out a possible $100,000 or more. Hm?
I've done some quoting on the Swiss site that gives quotes if you are a Swiss resident. I can tell you that a family of three costs from 7,886.40 CHF to 14,808.00 CHF a year ($300 ded. per incident). Quotes are based on living near Geneva. IF I want a hospital covered outside my Canton (like our States) or want a choice such as doctor, you need to add on supplemental insurance. Many Swiss people pay the "top up" supplementary insurance.
Or better yet, if you are someone living under the radar, the drug dealer, the illegal alien, etc. you wouldn't even be paying a fine. So when they get the cancer diagnosis, they waltz in to an insurance company, plop down a months premium and say.....start paying my bills.
We are living in a world where the elected officials are crazy!
Seems that the elected officials have no need to care about the money of working people.
On many levels even national security. But it doesn't matter as long as MNC get what they want and China get what it wants the rest of us are screwed.
I am becoming very worried about this. One obvious way to prevent this is to move very quickly to energy independence. Energy independence should be our "World War" that brings us out of this "Great Recession".
I've noted this also that China is clearly out to remove the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, they are buying up commodities like mad, including oil (I hope more people read this one I wrote up on China buying up oil reserves around the globe), and also seemingly trying to do it so they don't get stuck with a lot of junk U.S. debt.
California is a world unto itself. If someone is illegal, they will assuredly get state assistance, if someone is desperate, elderly or disabled, it's guaranteed they will get screwed. Teach in Spanish but screw the homeless and so on. I saw the "deal" on the budget and it is so ridiculous, a lot of accounting tricks, screwing the poor, those with the least political clout and ignore the $10.5 billion paid yearly on illegal immigrants and ignore the political favors, paybacks and other government bloat and of course they can't raise any taxes even though their property taxes just imploded.
The real need for CA is a new constitution. They have to do something to break that political cronyism, 2/3rd majority to do anything log jam.
Those results are in the current ones. I believe we have some posts on executive compensation reform and esp. how it rewards poor behavior, bad corporate decisions and I think we need to keep it up. 33% of all income! I went looking for the actual worker population percentage this is, i.e. 5000 executives vs. 66M workers or whatever it is but couldn't quickly find that data.
But...one of the reasons I am such a Gomory fan is he (so does Paul Samuelson, many) show, with good old fashioned equations from economics....precisely why your conclusion is correct.
I have not added any sort of equation display code on EP. I started to look into it and I will add if others, besides myself want to utilize it. I have a tendency to translate anything heavy into some wild outrage opinion, layman's persons, "bloggerspeak" but we certainly could start just posting some of the more Academic research and point out what it really says.
Apparently the State workers are not getting paid, are not laid off but must show up to work.
On the other hand all Welfare / WIC / Food Stamps are still being paid.
So let me see if I have this correct.
People working are not getting paid.
People not working are getting paid.
Have I fallen down the rabbit hole?
"Plans were made to help thousands of state employees weather payless paydays. Employee health benefits aren't affected. Neither are state welfare and pension payments."
Income inequality + Financialization + Globalization = Destruction of the Middle Class
Income inequality - your graph show this.
Financialization - the increase size and position of financial assets and financial sector in the economy.
Globalization - free flow of trade, capital and jobs from one country to another.
This equation is based on these view points: Here and Here
This quote from one of the above viewpoints summarizes the destruction of the Middle Class very well:
Maybe, I should submit this equation to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Na. I'll just keep repeating it and maybe soon it will sink in.
I've had similar questions. How, for example, can a USINPAC, which is Indians with U.S. citizenship, really lobbying for the interests of India and Indian companies, plain be allowed? It's like some of these organizations just use citizenship as a ticket to lobby for foreign interests and I believe Israel and a host of other foreign national have K-street lobbyists for our Congress as well.
We don't know yet if Hillary traded even more U.S. jobs to India yet but I'm wondering.
and a very good thing to look at, this quarterly driven slash and burn of employees that goes on, driven by corporate executive bonuses and temporary stock prices.
Brilliant column, along with the other column from midtowng on Americans saving, etc.
Heard Matt Taibbi at top form the other night in a radio interview along with some incoherent and rambling fellow from Greenwich Associates, Charley Ellis, a 30-year consultant for Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Ellis went on and on about "stubbing one's toe on the furniture," and other incoherent drivel. He repeated that Goldman "was forced to take TARP funds" - no mention of how Goldman Sachs became the fastest bank holding company on record, without the usual waiting period.
Ellis also said "..we are all guilty." Curious, we lost our jobs and have experienced a rapidly shrinking quality of life, while he and his group have walked away with billions. Nope, I'm pretty sure I'm not among the guilty - to the contrary, I'm with that group who has been diligently and actively fighting against the ongoing fraud.
Now Rivlin is also with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bretton Woods Committee (lobby group for the ultra-rich) and a signatory on that Bretton Woods Committee letter (dated Feb. 11, 2009) which removed the "Buy American" clause from the federal stimulus package. Interestingly, so is Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who just returned from China.
Now, since this constitutes politicking on behalf of offshoring American jobs, and Dr. Gates has, I am given to believe, received money from China, he is required under federal law to be a registered foreign agent (F.A.R.A.).
Now this is especially interesting as some of the other signatories happen to be members of the Obama Administration, and have, in the past, received money from China or India. This would include Richard C. Holbrooke, Diana Farrell, Laura Tyson (and Henry Kissinger should he still be President Obama's special envoy to Russia).
Therefore, they should all be registered foreign agents.
Of course, I (like many other of my fellow Americans, I suspect) did NOT vote for President Obama to offshore as many American jobs as possible - nor do I wish his appointees to be actively involved in such!
And lest we forget, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech in India (not her last one, but the second to the most recent one) which gave the strong impression that she was explaining that more Americans would be laid off and that India could expect further offshored jobs to their country from America!
I assume Secretary Clinton, as she received campaign contributions from India, is also a registered foreign agent - or in violation of federal law!
He had a role in PetroChina/Sudan IPO.
and all the "purty" pictures.
"Move along there is nothing to see here." That is what the financial oligarchy would like us to believe as they continue to reap the benefits of cheap credit provided by taxpayers
You can start hearing the whiffs of talk about the resilience of the markets. Ha. Ha. Fundamentally, nothing has changed but the massive trading profits of the financial conglomerates.
I am working on a post about how all the earning reports are meeting expectation but what is being overlooked is how these companies meeting expectation: cost cutting. Cost cutting, while necessary, is not sustainable over the long haul and unless demand picks up high stock valuations will not be justified.
I have been wondering for months how it was possible that the "savings rate" could be increasing at the same time that personal income in shrinking because of job losses. I hope and expect that you have posted this in other places.
But consumer credit is going down:
1) Consumer Credit decreased at an annual rate of 1-1/2 percent in May 2009. But rate of decrease has slowed. Could it be that we are re-inflating the bubble?
2) And after reaching a high of 14.2% of DPI (10/1/06) household debt service payments dropped to 13.48% of DPI (1/1/09)
Now, this could be a function of, as Robert said above, that foreclosures are forcing this decrease. But revolving credit went from $960.9 billion in December 2008 to $928 billion in May 2009
Pages