Jesse's Café Américain Sun 2009-09-13 12:32 EDT

Japan: The Triumph of Crony Corporatism Over the Individual

Jesse

The former Japanese Central Banker Toshiro Muto says that '"in principle equity values should be set by the market and authorities should avoid manipulating prices because doing so would hurt the stock market's reputation." Apparently in this case 'in principle' means 'theoretically, as is convenient," because Mr. Muto goes on to recommend that the Japanese Central Bank and government throw principles aside and buy stocks to support the Japanese banking cartel, which has crippled that country for the past fifteen to twenty years.

crony corporatism; individual; Japan; Jesse's Café Américain; triumph.

Asia Times Online Sun 2009-09-13 10:25 EDT

THE BEAR'S LAIR : Possible October surprises

Martin Hutchinson

The inflation that might be expected in the United States from unprecedented expansionary monetary policies has failed to appear, while huge budget deficits have yet to produce higher interest rates. Far from being signs of a new economic paradigm, this merely means new bubbles are forming...Commodities and gold therefore are the destination of this year's hot money and are forming the new bubble...a fair-sized bubble has developed in the T-bond market...however...a modest resurgence in US inflation or difficulty in a long dated T-bond auction could cause confidence to flee the Treasury bond market and yields to leap uncontrollably upwards...the long-term costs of excessively cheap money are beginning to be seen in the US economy itself. By allowing money to remain so cheap for so long, and by running incessant payments deficits, the United States has surrendered the advantage of its superior long-established capital base, narrowing its capital cost advantage over emerging markets and exporting that capital to countries with less profligate approaches. Huge budget deficits, themselves worsening the trade deficit, merely export yet more US capital to the surplus nations. That makes it inevitable that the years ahead, in which the United States will no longer enjoy a capital advantage over its lower-wage competitors, will see highly unpleasant declines in US living standards.

Asia Times Online; BEAR'S LAIR; Possible October surprises.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 15:33 EDT

Welcome to Fuffland!

kollapsnik

In the unfolding global financial collapse, it is not just our accounts and balance sheets that come up short, but our language as well. What do you call a bunch of liar loans packaged into toxic assets and placed on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve as collateral for rescue loans? J,K. Galbraith has proposed the term ``Bezzle,'' taking it to mean the eternal ebb and flow of questionable transactions within an economic cycle. Rational actors cut corners during easy times when they know no-one is looking, and then play nice again when the times change and someone starts paying attention again. But I believe that the phenomenon we are observing is something different: we need a word that describes the artifacts generated in response to irrational actors... A fuffle is an artful fake, an artifact specifically made to fool, beguile, seduce, or intimidate people into paying for it. Examples include suburbans houses and associated mortgage financing, SUVs, debt-financed college education, privately funded 401k retirement plans, US Treasury securities.

ClubOrlov; Fuffland; welcome.

Tue 2009-06-16 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Some Musings on Financial Innovation

Martin Mayer ``the whole purpose of the innovation is to get around the existing regulation''; John Maynard Keynes `` When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.'' Yves: ``ncreasing the liquidity of credit risk, even assuming it worked as advertised, seemed guaranteed to mean that everyone would be more casual about assuming it''

financial innovation; mused; naked capitalism.

Tue 2009-04-21 00:00 EDT

RGE - The Incredibly Shrinking Market Liquidity, Or The Upcoming Black Swan Of Black Swans

by Tyler Durden; ``quants close out a majority of their intraday positions at the end of each trading day, meaning that the vanilla money is stuck as a hot potato bagholder to what can only be classified as an unprecedented ponzi scheme''

Black Swan; Incredibly shrinking Market liquidity; RGE; Upcoming Black Swan.

Mon 2009-04-06 00:00 EDT

Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS

ex-banking regulator William K. Black calls fraud: ``make really bad loans, because they pay better. Then you grow extremely rapidly, in other words, you're a Ponzi-like scheme. And the third thing you do is we call it leverage. That just means borrowing a lot of money, and the combination creates a situation where you have guaranteed record profits in the early years. That makes you rich, through the bonuses that modern executive compensation has produced. It also makes it inevitable that there's going to be a disaster down the road.''

Bill Moyers Journal; PBS; Transcript.

Wed 2009-04-01 00:00 EDT

Michael Hudson: The Language of Looting

Michael Hudson: The Language of Looting. What "Nationalize the Banks" and the "Free Market" Really Mean in Today's Looking-Glass World

language; Looting; Michael Hudson.

Fri 2009-01-16 00:00 EST

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: When The Chips Are Down, Chipmakers Resort To Other Means

``the glut of chips will continue unabated...values are falling fast''

Chipmakers Resort; chips; meaning; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis.

Sun 2008-10-26 00:00 EDT

Joe Bageant: Moving to the Center of Elite Consensus

by "the masked political consultant"; ``what "Moving to the Center," means is: moving towards power and money''; ``What voters are expected to believe is that after a 30-year class war against the bottom 90% of income earners, the source of their troubles are black rappers and inner city fathers and not criminality on Wall Street or a corrupt political system.''; 2008-08-27

center; elite consensus; Joe Bageant; move.

Tue 2008-10-07 00:00 EDT

He Foresaw the End of an Era - The New York Review of Books

He Foresaw the End of an Era, by John Cassidy - The New York Review of Books; review of George Soros' The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means

books; ending; era; foresaw; New York Review.

Wed 2008-08-13 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: NewSpeak Watch: What Does "Sale" Mean? (LBO Loan Edition)

seller-financed sales retain exposure to devalued assets

LBO Loan Edition; meaning; naked capitalism; NewSpeak Watch; sales.

Wed 2008-07-09 00:00 EDT

Tomgram: Chris Hedges, War and Occupation, American-style

Collateral Damage: What It Really Means When America Goes to War, by Chris Hedges; "The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder."

American-style; Chris Hedges; occupancy; Tomgram; war.

Thu 2008-07-03 00:00 EDT

Faustian economics:

Hell hath no limits--By Wendell Berry (Harper's Magazine); "Our true religion is a sort of autistic industrialism"; "our 'identity' is located not in the impulse of selfhood but in deliberately maintained connections"; "in the phrase 'free market,' the word 'free' has come to mean unlimited economic power for some, with the necessary consequence of economic powerlessness for others"; "we confuse limits with confinement...our human and earthly limits, properly understood, are not confinements but rather inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to _fullness_ of relationship and meaning"; "we want to make our economic landscapes sustainably and abundantly productive, we must do so by maintaining in them a living formal complexity something like that of natural ecosystems. We can do this only by raising to the highest level our mastery of the arts of agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, and, ultimately, the art of living."

Faustian economics.

Thu 2008-06-05 00:00 EDT

Tomgram: Chris Hedges, War and Occupation, American-style

Collateral Damage: What It Really Means When America Goes to War, by Chris Hedges

American-style; Chris Hedges; occupancy; Tomgram; war.

Mon 2007-12-10 00:00 EST

Money Matters: A Bubble That Broke The World--Book By Garet Garrett

by Elaine Meinel Supkis; "Chinese plan...accept a loss of even $2 trillion if this means the utter destruction of the US military due to the USA going bankrupt"

books; broke; bubble; Garet Garrett; money matters; world.

Mon 2007-09-17 00:00 EDT

naked capitalism: Hedgies Hoist on the New Bankruptcy Law Petard?

Bankruptcy reform means liquidation not reorganization for troubled borrowers

Hedgies Hoist; naked capitalism; New Bankruptcy Law Petard.