The United States also put financial pressure on Great Britain to end the invasion. Eisenhower in fact ordered his Secretary of the Treasury, George M. Humphrey to prepare to sell part of the US Government's Sterling Bond holdings. The Government held these bonds in part to aid post war Britain’s economy (during the Cold War), and as partial payment of Britain’s enormous Second World War debt to the US Government, American corporations, and individuals. It was also part of the overall effort of Marshall Plan aid, in the rebuilding of the Western European economies.
Britain's then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold Macmillan, advised his Prime Minister Anthony Eden that the United States was fully prepared to carry out this threat. He also warned his Prime Minister that Britain's foreign exchange reserves simply could not sustain a devaluation of Pound that would come after the United States' actions; and that within weeks of such a move, the country would be unable to import the food and energy supplies needed simply to sustain the population on the islands.
Which is, if they believe there is risk, you will see it reflected in the market for these instruments. Name the television channel or radio, it doesn't matter, CNBC or even MSNBC or even NPR, bond buyers are a bit nervous right now. And at the risk of being banned (again), one theme being applied right now is weariness towards industries with unions; both Bloomberg and CNBC (don't really watch Fox Business) had on guys who traded a lot of paper who said they aren't touching industrials' debt if there is a union; or really any paper that has a union associated with that company. And it was a message being echoed over and over again, because they saw what happened at GM. Now you take this as you want, frankly I think its a bit overblown, because GM was really a special case in my opinion. Really time will tell if the market is somewhat shy on those bonds, but if it is true, then those companies are going to be forced to offer a higher rate, that's really it.
Regarding government bonds, be it treasuries or even agency paper, folks who regularly buy this stuff in gobs and gobs are too feeling vulnerable. I don't think it was just the Chinese who were laughing at Geithner when those remarks were heard. Only, I suspect in both the Chinese and here, the laughter was one of the nervous variety. The Chinese are long term players like other bond holders, and both aren't sure they see a light at the end of the tunnel. Deficit is what, 12%? It is supposed to drop, but still the numbers are astronomical. Even raising taxes on the rich may not be enough. Between the pumping of the money and the government spending, many are thinking that longer term inflation is going to kick in. And to folks, like the Chinese, it is beginning to look like they will be paid back in cheaper dollars. Competition for money is coming, be it from Europe or here, to meet needs not being met by declining taxes or what have you. At the end of the day, rates could be going up. That is why, for the most part, you see the sell offs.
Armstrong is currently in prison and is banned from using computers. He does his work with a typewriter, pencil, and paper and then sends it out by mail to someone. They scan it, probably with a digital copy machine, to make a pdf file which ends up on scribd. The file is not OCR-ed, just a picture of a piece of paper.
Anyone who wants to quote it will have to type by hand. Maybe you can go to scribd, search on Martin Armstrong, read it, and type up anything you think is interesting.
This has been expected since last September in terms of creep to quality. The problem is...jobs. Even the remaining employed engineers are iffy right now. Hard to make payments without steady earnings.
My Great Uncle once said, "He that owes...is king. Even if a borrower can pay, it is his option to follow through on his promise. Even after you've worked for a man, if he refuses to pay you, very often in certain places you must take him to court to collect, which is money out of your pocket. So, know who you're dealing with." Fact: when there's a willingness to repay matched with ability to repay a bondholder is protected. Once the ability is diminished, the bondholder has only discounted assets. So, no...bondholders do not rule the world; indeed, they're very vulnerable.
than Geithner's criticism of the RMB peg? That is, putting a protest on record to signal unhappiness but understanding that serious action would be disastrous for both parties? Surely they know that the deficit ship sailed a long time ago, that even more serious economic contraction now would increase the risk of default. Just as we knew that while a fixed RMB put us (and the rest of the world) at a competitive disadvantage currency speculation on the RMB would be utterly disastrous to everyone.
No, I'm not familiar with Armstrong, but on EP, you can link and quote in comments by creating a user account on the upper left. All sorts of features are enabled, like fully featured HTML writing and the site is a community site.
Maybe you can link up and quote some of his better work for us?
Hi Robert,
I'm a jsmineset reader and I also read financialsense.com, Peter Shiff's site and The Market Ticker by Karl Denninger. This blog was suitably scary. I live in Australia and we watch what is going on in the USA with fascination and horror - horror because we are starting to see the cracks appearing in our own economy.
Have you checked out Martin Armstrong's work on Scribd.com?
regards,
Sherry
Newberry is so correct, and, as usual, Krugman is his usual flibbertigibbet self, all over the landscape, far more of a "political economist" (or looney tunes, as most, if not all, of the Nobel Prize recipients in economics have been).
To quote Alan Greenspan (whoever thought things would get so primitive that anyone would be quoting Greenspan!!), extreme credit leads to extreme amounts of speculation which leads to economic collapse (or words to that effect).
And, as so correctly pointed out, we're back at the same place because the anti-Roosevelt administration, the Obama Administration, is carrying on the Bush Administration (and the Clinton, and previous Bush, and Reagan's) policies, a total destruction continuum.
It has taken me many years of reading and studying to appreciate that the three truly economic weapons-of-mass-destruction (and major fraudulent legislation) were: the Monetary Control Act of 1980, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (Financial Services Modernization Act) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
At this point, we must truly embrace the radical, it is time to review Henry George and the present exemplar of his really human and economic democracy philosphy, JW Smith (ied.info).
Outstanding column with graphs, but the last one, Figure 5.10, Loss Estimates; I thought that CLOs make up a portion of the commercial real estate market (along with the private equity loans)? Are those entirely separate?
Not that it really matters all that much in the scheme of things. So the Soviets lost $$$ big time in their war in Afghanistan, which, according to Brzezinski's memoirs, he engineered. Now the US is losing $$$ big time in their war in Afghanistan, destroying wedding party after wedding party, unfortunately. And Brzezinski signs the Bretton Woods Committee letter in furthering the offshoring of American jobs.
Anybody for a public roasting of Brzezinski (as in burning at the stake)?
"Geithner and his buddy Bernanke are bumbling idiots."
You wouldn't mind if we took away from them the retardation defense, would you? And please feel free to introduce the moral dimension. Such a construct might then have you describing them as protozoa or fungi which from that latter perspective would be entirely just in my view. Of the two, Summers is the more contemptable. Geithner, naturally a follower, has learned his slither from others while Summers, on the other hand, is a genuine maestro in his own right. Wonder which Obama contributor was most influential in securing Summer's appointment?
If the anti-trust laws were still enforced. The last time I can remember them *actually* being anything other than a slap on the wrist was the AT&T breakup.
I would love to see the banks, not nationalized, but states enabled to compete with them, like Bank of North Dakota.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Large dealers in the $26 trillion credit default swap market are blocking CME Group's (CME.N) efforts to clear the trades in a bid to retain their "oligopoly" over the market, hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management said on Monday.
Profit motives and interests of the financial conglomerates/oligarchy are in direct conflict with our interests. Transparency means that less profit opportunities for these financial conglomerates.
The problem is we have this sort of political elite, tied to the corporate oligarchy in both parties.
So, it's easy to just blame the party in power instead of the system itself, which needs fixing.
And of course expecting those who benefit from the system, expecting them to fix it...
well, what was that phrase about foxes in the hen house?
$57M from MI. It just seems like MI gets pooped on everytime! From the primary votes to jobs to Federal money it seems like their title should be the shit on state.
Hotly contested legislative wars are traditional fare in Washington, of course, and bills are often shaped by the push and pull of lobbyists — representing a cornucopia of special interests — working with politicians and government agencies.
What makes this fight different, say Wall Street critics and legislative leaders, is that financiers are aggressively seeking to fend off regulation of the very products and practices that directly contributed to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In contrast, after the savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s, the clout of the financial lobby diminished significantly.
The current battle mirrors a tug-of-war a decade ago. Arguing that regulation would hamper financial innovation and send American jobs overseas, Congress passed legislation in December 2000 exempting derivatives from most oversight. It was signed by President Bill Clinton.
The law passed despite the strenuous objections of Brooksley Born, a former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who left the government after her unsuccessful effort to impose more regulation. In a recent speech, Ms. Born said big banks are again trying to water down oversight efforts.
“Special interests in the financial-services industry are beginning to advocate a return to business as usual and to argue against any need for serious reform,” Ms. Born, now a lawyer in private practice, said at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where she received a Profile in Courage Award.
1956
link
Which is, if they believe there is risk, you will see it reflected in the market for these instruments. Name the television channel or radio, it doesn't matter, CNBC or even MSNBC or even NPR, bond buyers are a bit nervous right now. And at the risk of being banned (again), one theme being applied right now is weariness towards industries with unions; both Bloomberg and CNBC (don't really watch Fox Business) had on guys who traded a lot of paper who said they aren't touching industrials' debt if there is a union; or really any paper that has a union associated with that company. And it was a message being echoed over and over again, because they saw what happened at GM. Now you take this as you want, frankly I think its a bit overblown, because GM was really a special case in my opinion. Really time will tell if the market is somewhat shy on those bonds, but if it is true, then those companies are going to be forced to offer a higher rate, that's really it.
Regarding government bonds, be it treasuries or even agency paper, folks who regularly buy this stuff in gobs and gobs are too feeling vulnerable. I don't think it was just the Chinese who were laughing at Geithner when those remarks were heard. Only, I suspect in both the Chinese and here, the laughter was one of the nervous variety. The Chinese are long term players like other bond holders, and both aren't sure they see a light at the end of the tunnel. Deficit is what, 12%? It is supposed to drop, but still the numbers are astronomical. Even raising taxes on the rich may not be enough. Between the pumping of the money and the government spending, many are thinking that longer term inflation is going to kick in. And to folks, like the Chinese, it is beginning to look like they will be paid back in cheaper dollars. Competition for money is coming, be it from Europe or here, to meet needs not being met by declining taxes or what have you. At the end of the day, rates could be going up. That is why, for the most part, you see the sell offs.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
Armstrong is currently in prison and is banned from using computers. He does his work with a typewriter, pencil, and paper and then sends it out by mail to someone. They scan it, probably with a digital copy machine, to make a pdf file which ends up on scribd. The file is not OCR-ed, just a picture of a piece of paper.
Anyone who wants to quote it will have to type by hand. Maybe you can go to scribd, search on Martin Armstrong, read it, and type up anything you think is interesting.
This has been expected since last September in terms of creep to quality. The problem is...jobs. Even the remaining employed engineers are iffy right now. Hard to make payments without steady earnings.
My Great Uncle once said, "He that owes...is king. Even if a borrower can pay, it is his option to follow through on his promise. Even after you've worked for a man, if he refuses to pay you, very often in certain places you must take him to court to collect, which is money out of your pocket. So, know who you're dealing with." Fact: when there's a willingness to repay matched with ability to repay a bondholder is protected. Once the ability is diminished, the bondholder has only discounted assets. So, no...bondholders do not rule the world; indeed, they're very vulnerable.
Keep an eye on the 1 year LIBOR. Most of these ARMS adjust to some percent above LIBOR, which is very low right now.
>>> And part of that will be a realized lower standard of living for most Americans
Just one point. Not necessary so. The Moore's law of technology may make Americans to actually live more or less the same lifestyle but spend less.
Don't you think that this year the same car (iPod, TV) costs you a lot less than 10 years ago? And Netflix can save you a bunch on the movie theaters?
and events have shown that theirs were not worst case scenarios. Good post.
But a question: what's an unsecuritized ARM? Not what it sounds like, I hope.
than Geithner's criticism of the RMB peg? That is, putting a protest on record to signal unhappiness but understanding that serious action would be disastrous for both parties? Surely they know that the deficit ship sailed a long time ago, that even more serious economic contraction now would increase the risk of default. Just as we knew that while a fixed RMB put us (and the rest of the world) at a competitive disadvantage currency speculation on the RMB would be utterly disastrous to everyone.
Yeah, btw, can I immigrate? ;)
No, I'm not familiar with Armstrong, but on EP, you can link and quote in comments by creating a user account on the upper left. All sorts of features are enabled, like fully featured HTML writing and the site is a community site.
Maybe you can link up and quote some of his better work for us?
Hi Robert,
I'm a jsmineset reader and I also read financialsense.com, Peter Shiff's site and The Market Ticker by Karl Denninger. This blog was suitably scary. I live in Australia and we watch what is going on in the USA with fascination and horror - horror because we are starting to see the cracks appearing in our own economy.
Have you checked out Martin Armstrong's work on Scribd.com?
regards,
Sherry
Newberry is so correct, and, as usual, Krugman is his usual flibbertigibbet self, all over the landscape, far more of a "political economist" (or looney tunes, as most, if not all, of the Nobel Prize recipients in economics have been).
To quote Alan Greenspan (whoever thought things would get so primitive that anyone would be quoting Greenspan!!), extreme credit leads to extreme amounts of speculation which leads to economic collapse (or words to that effect).
And, as so correctly pointed out, we're back at the same place because the anti-Roosevelt administration, the Obama Administration, is carrying on the Bush Administration (and the Clinton, and previous Bush, and Reagan's) policies, a total destruction continuum.
It has taken me many years of reading and studying to appreciate that the three truly economic weapons-of-mass-destruction (and major fraudulent legislation) were: the Monetary Control Act of 1980, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (Financial Services Modernization Act) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
At this point, we must truly embrace the radical, it is time to review Henry George and the present exemplar of his really human and economic democracy philosphy, JW Smith (ied.info).
Outstanding column with graphs, but the last one, Figure 5.10, Loss Estimates; I thought that CLOs make up a portion of the commercial real estate market (along with the private equity loans)? Are those entirely separate?
Not that it really matters all that much in the scheme of things. So the Soviets lost $$$ big time in their war in Afghanistan, which, according to Brzezinski's memoirs, he engineered. Now the US is losing $$$ big time in their war in Afghanistan, destroying wedding party after wedding party, unfortunately. And Brzezinski signs the Bretton Woods Committee letter in furthering the offshoring of American jobs.
Anybody for a public roasting of Brzezinski (as in burning at the stake)?
"Geithner and his buddy Bernanke are bumbling idiots."
You wouldn't mind if we took away from them the retardation defense, would you? And please feel free to introduce the moral dimension. Such a construct might then have you describing them as protozoa or fungi which from that latter perspective would be entirely just in my view. Of the two, Summers is the more contemptable. Geithner, naturally a follower, has learned his slither from others while Summers, on the other hand, is a genuine maestro in his own right. Wonder which Obama contributor was most influential in securing Summer's appointment?
If the anti-trust laws were still enforced. The last time I can remember them *actually* being anything other than a slap on the wrist was the AT&T breakup.
I would love to see the banks, not nationalized, but states enabled to compete with them, like Bank of North Dakota.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
In some cities that's been happening since January (yes, I linked the entire sentence)
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
This sounds a lot like collusion. Are the financial conglomerates directly violating anti-trust laws?
the financial oligarchy? Link
Profit motives and interests of the financial conglomerates/oligarchy are in direct conflict with our interests. Transparency means that less profit opportunities for these financial conglomerates.
The problem is we have this sort of political elite, tied to the corporate oligarchy in both parties.
So, it's easy to just blame the party in power instead of the system itself, which needs fixing.
And of course expecting those who benefit from the system, expecting them to fix it...
well, what was that phrase about foxes in the hen house?
$57M from MI. It just seems like MI gets pooped on everytime! From the primary votes to jobs to Federal money it seems like their title should be the shit on state.
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