For the individual wanting to break free of the unending sea of collectives and institutions contending for his soul...and more...put together by a Visionary Philosopher, so I've been told. Maybe you want to stay tuned to see if that's true... with notes on The End of the Nation State.
For the first time in history, the total indebtedness of the U.S., including unfunded liabilities, exceeds the total net worth of all U.S. households. --former Comptroller of the Currency, David Walker, SQUAWK BOX, CNBC, November 7, 2008, 07:23:05
posted by jomama @ 2:42 PM
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“Not far away, metal, cardboard, paper and plastic are piling up in the lot of Corridor Recycling. The company takes in refuse from around the country, then bales it for shipment to China. The cardboard is used to make new boxes while used shrink wrap is turned into shoe soles and insulation for sleeping bags and coats.Ladies, few have a clue how bad this will get...everywhere.
For much of this year, the company shipped about 25 containers a day, each filled with 23 tons of refuse to be recycled. But after the Olympics, demand slowed for recycled metal. In October, demand for everything else took a sharp downturn, and for the last two weeks the company has not shipped a single container.
“It just came to a complete stop. Absolutely a stop,” said Gilbert Dodson, the recycling company’s co-owner. “I’ve seen it slow over the last 25 years, but this is the worst,” he said of the current downturn...”
NYTimes.com
There are stories about ships all over the world stacking up in exporting countries, anchored, and not able to sail because they cannot get letters of credit for the shipments. Hong Kong was mentioned as having rows and rows of loaded but idled ships stuck there.
The same goes for oil tankers, lines of them anchored even though they are full, with no buyers. There has been a screeching halt of shipping worldwide. Products are backing up in Asia.
Many of you have heard about the collapse of the Baltic Dry index, a shipping index for containers. It has fallen from over 11,000 in July to around 800, in only a couple of months!
posted by jomama @ 2:12 PM
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"We were all reassured that there was going to be transparency, accountability, legality," Klein stated. "But now we’re finding out that, in fact, Henry Paulson has achieved his original goal by stealth, because there is no accountability, and lawmakers are very hesitant to challenge this. ... Essentially, what the Bush administration has done is said, 'We dare you to challenge us and be responsible for the Great Depression.'"When the fuck are people who should know better going to get it?
posted by jomama @ 2:51 PM
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"There are cycles in human nature and it is up to regulators to moderate these excesses...." --Paul VolckerThe current TWIT (Thing not Worthy of Intense Trepidation)
posted by jomama @ 5:54 AM
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"I ran across Dmitry Orlov's book, Reinventing Collapse, in which he compares present day America to Soviet Russia prior to its…collapse.
"Orlov outlines five stages of collapse, and where the U.S. along the way:
"Financial Collapse. Already in motion.
"Commercial Collapse. Just started.
"Political Collapse (a loss of faith in ideology). First part is over (the recent election in the US). Second part is going to be nasty.
"Social Collapse. Potentially the end state or stable equilibrium point for most of the world. Everyone against everyone with points awarded by the global marketplace.
"Cultural Collapse. Full meltdown. Global market breaks."
posted by jomama @ 12:56 PM
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The price of white truffles has fallen 84pc. Fines wines have dropped 65pc. Lobsters are off 52pc. Deflation has reached the City. It has engulfed housing and now threatens to spread through the broader economy, lodging like a virus in the British and global monetary systems.Read.
posted by jomama @ 12:52 PM
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I don’t think we will have to wait for 30 years to see Social Security and Medicare to bankrupt the US. What will happen sooner is that, as the US enters economic depression this time, the return on investment for our trade partners will disappear. The US won’t keep our trade parnters’ hundreds of millions employed, and they will then stop buying US Treasury bonds. And then the USD devalues 70% in a year. Maybe going to zero soon after that. The US is then bankrupted.Highly recommended.
When can this happen? Possibly mid way into the next US economic depression (not recession). And, since I think we are now entering the beginning of a US depression, then if it lasts ten years, that means we have about 4 years to go for the USD to finally give up the ghost.
Yes, I mean that. We have maybe 4 years left, maybe even only 2 years for the USD to remain anything at all.
What can you do about all this?...
posted by jomama @ 9:36 AM
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Capesizes that were attracting rates of $233,988 a day as recently as June are now available for $4,793, according to the Baltic Exchange in London. That's below the cost of paying for crew, insurance, maintenance and lubricants.Read.
Capesizes are the second-largest commodity transporters, after very large ore carriers. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs across different ship sizes, has slumped 93 percent from a record in May.
posted by jomama @ 6:00 PM
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Sadly, we're getting a whole lot of precisely the wrong kind of thinking in response to this crisis. Indeed, most of the bad thinking arises from viewing the economy through the lens of false metaphor -- economy as machine. We've heard pundits accuse the government or banks of being "asleep at the switch." But in a complex system there is no switch. We've heard people ask how to "fix it," "run it," or "regulate it," suggesting if just the right sort of genius controlled the rheostats, we'd get just the right sort of economy....the essence of The Matrix.
But the economy is not like a machine at all. It is rather more like an ecosystem that no one can run, fix, or regulate. The hubristic sort of person who thinks he or anyone can run an economy is the victim of what Hayek called the "fatal conceit." And if given power, he will end up making the rest of us the victims of his false metaphor.
People want government, like God, to come down and fix the unfixable, or explain the inexplicable. That's why they're finding it easier to blame greed for our current financial crises. But greed is rather more like gravity. When you fall, you can either blame Newton or the banana peel on the ground.Full essay.
posted by jomama @ 5:44 AM
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The story is riveting in its own right, not only as monetary history but as business history. He has highlighted a fantastic industry that has long gone unnoticed. But beyond that, there is a massively important economic point. What Selgin has done here is help us to understand something critically important: were it not for the state, a wholly private money system would emerge from market exchange. That means private coinage, private weights and measures, market-driven exchange rates between different kinds of monies, and a fully private banking system to go along it with it.The state will have to become toothless for it to loose its monopoly in currency issue.
In fact, this is precisely how money originates: from the within the market. Why does the state intervene? The British case is typical. The state wants to control the economy, tax the economy, and control the people. If a fully private system comes about, the state finds its job all-but impossible.[My emphasis] That is why the state takes over at the expense of private enterprise.
In other words, the state is not responding here to a market failure but a market success. It is not a "public goods" rationale that leads to state intervention but old-fashioned jealousy over power and wealth. Selgin's book shows this not through polemics but through a completely new telling of real-life events about which we've previously known next to nothing.Full review. (MP3 interview with Selgin on site.)
posted by jomama @ 1:09 PM
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But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: Your money, or your life." And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol [*13] to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
The proceedings of those robbers and murderers, who call themselves "the government," are directly the opposite of these of the single highwayman. --Lysander Spooner,1808-1887.
posted by jomama @ 7:32 AM
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posted by jomama @ 1:24 PM
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Money being supplied to the banks is not being lent through. Banks are parking the money in short dated government securities in anticipation of their own funding requirements. Around $3-4 trillion of assets are returning to bank balance sheets from the "shadow" banking system - off-balance sheet structures - that can no longer finance themselves. In addition, banks have large amount of maturing debt (estimates suggest $1.5 trillion by the end of 2008) that they must fund. Fear of bank failure (especially after the bankruptcy of Lehman and restructuring of WaMu) and shortages of capital also limit ability of banks to on-lendFull article.
posted by jomama @ 12:48 PM
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"I think jomama has a keen understanding of government, society, most people, war, the media, do-gooders, do-badders, evolution, feminism, marxism, Don and Nalini, and subatomic particles." --Fred Reed, not just another religion.
High praise from a master curmudgeon, but I'll have to take issue with the last three items as I really don't pay 'em much mind. To quote Fred, "It's a design feature."
"Anybody wanting a piece of me without my consent can come back tomorrow and go to the end of the line. I gladly accept your requirement to be treated likewise." --jomama
