Category: Economy

  Executives from Glen Beck’s favorite gold company, Goldline, testified in front Congress yesterday. Rep. Anthony Weiner showed no mercy.

 “We’re talking about a classic consumer issue,” Weiner said at a House subcommittee hearing. “The television gold industry, led by [Goldline], is built on lies, fear and rip-offs.”

 While Weiner has a point, at least when it comes to Goldline being a predator, one has to wonder why Congress doesn’t share that level of outrage for the infinitely larger problem of payday loan predators? Is it because Goldline doesn’t have the lobbying power of the entire banking industry? Or because Beck endorses Goldline, thus making it a partisan hearing?

 On the very same day of the hearings there was another headline in the markets.

 Gold prices traded in record territory again Thursday as inflation-wary investors bid prices up near the psychologically important threshold of $1,300 an ounce.

  Gold prices gained $4.20 to settle a record $1,296.30 an ounce, building on gains it made after the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday it might take further steps to stimulate the economy. …

  Gold prices have nearly doubled since 2008, when an economic panic shook global credit markets and central banks responded by flooding currency markets. Since then, global economic uncertainty and inflation fears have spurred investors to shift money from stocks and cash into gold.

 The simple fact is that while Goldline might be stoking the hype and fear, people would be rushing into gold even if Goldline didn’t exist. The reason isn’t because of lies and rip-offs. The reasons are based on sound historical facts.

  Executives from Glen Beck’s favorite gold company, Goldline, testified in front Congress yesterday. Rep. Anthony Weiner showed no mercy.

 “We’re talking about a classic consumer issue,” Weiner said at a House subcommittee hearing. “The television gold industry, led by [Goldline], is built on lies, fear and rip-offs.”

 While Weiner has a point, at least when it comes to Goldline being a predator, one has to wonder why Congress doesn’t share that level of outrage for the infinitely larger problem of payday loan predators? Is it because Goldline doesn’t have the lobbying power of the entire banking industry? Or because Beck endorses Goldline, thus making it a partisan hearing?

 On the very same day of the hearings there was another headline in the markets.

 Gold prices traded in record territory again Thursday as inflation-wary investors bid prices up near the psychologically important threshold of $1,300 an ounce.

  Gold prices gained $4.20 to settle a record $1,296.30 an ounce, building on gains it made after the Federal Reserve announced Tuesday it might take further steps to stimulate the economy. …

  Gold prices have nearly doubled since 2008, when an economic panic shook global credit markets and central banks responded by flooding currency markets. Since then, global economic uncertainty and inflation fears have spurred investors to shift money from stocks and cash into gold.

 The simple fact is that while Goldline might be stoking the hype and fear, people would be rushing into gold even if Goldline didn’t exist. The reason isn’t because of lies and rip-offs. The reasons are based on sound historical facts.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

Christine O’Donnell is fast becoming the face of the Republican Party.  Her campaign slogan is — to put it in Marxist language — power to the people.  Or, something like that. To quote an oft-used phrase on the internet(s) and one used frequently on this blog, “Teh stoopid! It burns.”  

Time permitting, I will try to post Part II of this diary later on this week.  

If Republicans got their Way … there would be no more Medicare.

If Republicans got their Way … you couldn’t Retire until 70.

If Republicans got their Way … they’d privatize Social Security.

If Republicans got their Way … there would be no more Corporate income tax.

If Republicans got their Way … they’d eliminate taxes on Capital gains.

If Republicans got their Way … they’d cut in half the taxes of the richest 1 percent.

If Republicans got their Way … the Bush Tax Cut for the Rich would never end.

Factlets from The Republican’s Roadmap for America’s Future:

The Ryan Budget’s Radical Priorities

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

By Paul N. Van de Water — July 7, 2010

If Republicans got their Way … Christine O’Donnell would be their new Class Treasurer!

  The National Bureau of Economic Research declared this week that the Great Recession ended over a year ago. Yet, for some reason, the average American isn’t ready to break out the champagne.

 “Every single one of the individuals who wrote the report needs a serious reality check,” said Bob Johnson of the Queens borough of New York, who is 46, had worked in communications and has been looking for a job for more than three years.

 The American working class is hurting. The unemployment rate is only marginally down from the peak and the economy has been losing jobs over the last three months. Households were $1.5 Trillion poorer last quarter, and $12.3 Trillion poorer than three years ago. Most of this is reflected in the crushed dreams of retirement. The poverty rate is at a 15-year high.

 Nevertheless, the economy is improving, right? That depends on who you ask.

in case you missed it …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Wall Street Wizard, Anthony Scaramucci, complained like a baby to the President yesterday:

I represent the Wall Street community. We have felt like a Piñata. […] we certainly feel like we’ve been whacked with a stick.

Waaaaaa!! ….

I bet, The 8 million people who lost their jobs (or homes) are about to …  

An experienced economist and a novice economist are walking down the road. They come across some dog sh*t lying on the pavement.

The experienced economist says, “If you eat that dog sh*t, I’ll give you $20,000!”

The novice economist runs his optimization program and figures out he’s better off eating it, so he does and collects the money.

Continuing along the same road they almost step into another pile of dog sh*t.

The novice economist says, “Now, if you eat this sh*t I’ll give you $20,000.”

After evaluating the proposal, the experienced economist eats the sh*t and collects the money.

They go on. The novice economist wonders, “Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate sh*t. I don’t see us being better off.”

The experienced economist retorts, “Not so! We’ve created $40,000 of trade!”

The summer of 2002 was a drought year in the Klamath Basin.

An estimated 70,000 salmon died that year after the Bush administration “ignored its own federal biologists and divert more water from the Klamath River for farm irrigation”. According to documents, the decision was made because the farmers generally voted Republican. The Bush Administration then went on to order that water continue to be diverted for another eight years.

Only 24,000 fall chinook spawned naturally in the Klamath in 2004, followed by 27,000 last year.

The analysis from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified low water flows as a prime culprit in a major salmon kill on the Klamath River in 2002.

Because it takes several years for salmon to reach peak reproducing age, the effects of this huge fish-kill only started in 2005 when the National Marine Fisheries Service abbreviated the commercial salmon season. It cut the income of west coast fishermen “by 50 percent”.

California and Oregon indian tribes, that have depended on salmon fishing for thousands of years, also had their fishing quotas cut back by as much as half.

It’s easy to look at this example as an exception based on petty politics, but that would require you to overlook five centuries of political and economic policy.

Even though many of us have Disaster Fatigue, for scores of hundreds of local Gulf Residents, this BP Crisis is very much their recurring daily Nightmare.

BP Oil Spill Compensation Fund Not Living Up to Promise

NewsInferno.com, News that matters! — Sep 10, 2010

In an interview with USA Today, Feinberg promised a better response times as his staff weeds through old claims. “I’ve inherited a huge number of claims that have never been processed that need to be processed, especially business claims,” he said. Such claims, he said, were placed on a “side track” by BP when it was handling the process.

According to USA Today, more than 46,000 people have filed claims since Feinberg took charge. By September 8, his staff had paid 10,252 claims for nearly $80 million. Most claims paid are small, with payouts of $5,000 or less, USA Today said.

So Ken Feinberg has inherited an extensive paper trail of bureaucratic procrastination;

While the Gulf Coast Residents, simply keep reaping the BP whirlwind …

There is a crack daylight, that may topple the Republican’s Wall of Inaction.

Voinovich breaks with GOP to push for small-business incentives

Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff — Sept 10, 2010

Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that would give President Obama and congressional Democrats a key victory on the economy in the final weeks before the November midterm elections.

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support Republican efforts to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional amendments. Most of the proposed GOP amendments “didn’t have anything to do with the bill” anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan “messaging.”

“We don’t have time for messaging,” Voinovich said. “We don’t have time anymore. This country is really hurting.”

Finally a Republican Senator with some Integrity, who is willing work for the folks, that Voted him into Office  (instead of working against their interests, for his own gain …)

 Wall Street’s troubles are compounding. It appears that small investors have waken up to the fact that the game is rigged. They are fleeing from casino capitalism in droves.

 In a speech Tuesday, Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said the SEC  was informed by retail brokers that the Main Street investors they cater to “have pulled back” from the stock market since the flash crash.

  To buttress her point, Schapiro noted that stock funds have suffered net outflows every week since the flash crash.

 

 When I wrote this well-received essay a week ago, the net outflows were beginning to gain attention from the media. In the past week, things have gotten much worse for Wall Street.

  Because the lack of new “dumb money” flowing into Wall Street, as many as 80,000 banksters will lose their jobs.

 Since Washington refuses to enact serious reforms of Wall Street, and the regulators refuse to do their jobs, it has come down to mom and pop investors to starve Wall Street into submission.

  Europe is in trouble again.

Back in May the European Central Bank created a massive $1 Trillion bailout package for the countries on the fringe of Europe that were struggling with rising interest rates on their debts.

 Despite the enormous bailout package, interest rates for the PIIGS countries just hit new records today.

Irish and Portuguese government bonds fell, pushing the yields on 10-year securities to records versus benchmark German bunds, on concern European banks are vulnerable to losses on their holdings of so-called peripheral euro-region debt.

Spain’s debt isn’t doing much better.  

 This is particularly depressing for Ireland since it has already enacted the draconian austerity measures that the financial markets demanded. In fact, all of the European nations in question have implemented austerity measures, and yet the financial markets continue to punish them.

Ireland and Portugal are the big losers for today, but Greece is still leading the pack towards self-destruction.

 “Greece is insolvent,” Bosomworth, Munich-based head of portfolio management at Pimco, which oversees the world’s largest bond fund, said in a telephone interview today. “I see it as being quite a substantial risk that Greece eventually defaults or restructures.”

 One Trillion dollars in bailouts and we are back where we started four months ago. Why is that?

  The answer is surprisingly simple.