Category: Economy

A Stars Hollow Gazette

I call these diaries Fun with Numbers because for me part of the attraction is working out the HTML (which delights Caribou Barbie who is easily distracted by bright and shiny things).  I really started paying attention to the economy when it became apparent the the W years were in fact nothing but a scam.

These are some pieces I wrote before I started having fun-

• 22.07- Thanks for nothing. Sep 17, 2008
• The Stars Hollow Gazette Sep 28, 2008
• Dow 6000 Oct 08, 2008

• Happy Anniversary! Oct 09, 2008

Happy Anniversary! covers the dates from October 1st to October 9th including the anniversary of the HIGHEST DOW EVER!, 14,164 on October 9, 2007.  It’s the first time I started having fun with numbers.

You’ll notice they’re all very red.

Over those 7 days alone (and those would be trading days) the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,271.47 points.  Why use the DJIA?  Why not, it’s a broad and easily tracked indicator as well as one of the most popular.  Economists may quibble but I’m not an economist.

I’m a critic.

Fun With Numbers

I started my data set September 26th, the Bail Out Boost, followed immediately by September 29th, the Wall Street Snit Fit, the largest single day point loss for the Dow ever, -777.68.  Let’s take a moment to pause and reflect that it was because Congress (thank goodness for small favors) didn’t give Paulson 700 BILLION dollars for an extortion note he scribbled on the back of a napkin.

• We interrupt this program Thu Oct 16, 2008
• Drive Time Thu Oct 23, 2008
• Monday Morning Market Predictions Mon Oct 27, 2008
• Madam Zelda! Madam Zelda! Is it true this house is haunted?! Wed Nov 19, 2008

November 19th is the last time I go back all the way to the beginning because the table was starting to get a little long, but I don’t want people to forget how we must bow down before her Bartiromoness and all the Galts for they know ever so much more than us mere serfs and peons.

• The Stars Hollow Gazette Mon Dec 01, 2008

This one only covers 7 trading days and it has a lot a of green in it which made Caribou Barbie very happy, but it also includes November 20th when the Dow fell 444.99 points and finished at 7,552.29.

That’s the November bottom you keep hearing about on CNBC.

• Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy! Wed Jan 21, 2009

An extensive record of FAIL!

Madam Zelda, Madam Zelda- Do The Markets Lie?

No, the markets are perfect and flawless indicators.

But Wait!

High Noon: Geithner v. the American Oligarchs

Bill Moyers, The Bill Moyers Journal via Truthout, Friday, 13 February 2009

Moyers talked on Friday’s Bill Moyers Journal with Simon Johnson, Former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), MIT Sloan School of Management professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who examines President Obama’s plan for economic recovery.

China eyes resources security with Rio deal

by Fran Wang, AFP

Sun Feb 15, 12:14 am ET

BEIJING, Feb 15, 2009 (AFP) – China’s record investment in a foreign firm has underlined the nation’s drive to get more control over the natural resources that have helped fuel its rapid rise, analysts say.

State-owned aluminium firm Chinalco said last week it was putting 19.5 billion dollars into troubled Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto — the most money China has ever invested in an overseas company.

For Rio, the deal provides cash to help pay off its vast debt load.

China confident of overcoming economic difficulty: Wen

AFP

Sun Feb 15, 7:43 am ET

BEIJING (AFP) – China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao expressed confidence in his government’s ability to overcome the nation’s economic downturn, his cabinet said Sunday.

“We are fully confident that we have the conditions and the capability to overcome the challenges we are facing,” Wen was quoted as saying in comments posted on the government’s website.

“We should fully realise the severity and uncertainty of the global financial crisis… and take firmer action.”

In a Bill Moyers interview with Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF and now a Professor of Global Economics and Management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Johnson expressed a pessimistic view of those empowered to lead us out of this economic crisis.  

Jane Hamsher at FDL explains:

Johnson isn’t for “nationalization” per se, he’s for “scaled up FDIC intervention,” breaking down the “oligarchy” by pitting one faction against the other.  Based on his analysis of who is holding the financial keys at the moment, he fundamentally believes that the people in charge of determining the outcome of the situation have a vested interest in not standing up to the banking interests and doing the things that need to be done.  And that is not a comforting thought.

No.  It’s not a comforting thought.  There’s no comfort in knowing that Captain Geithner seems intent upon ramming into the same iceberg Captain Paulson rammed into, there’s no comfort in knowing only the elites will get to board the lifeboats, there’s no comfort in being trapped below decks in steerage class while all of this iceberg ramming is going on.  

From Media Matters Friday the 13th, a video excerpt from Fox News:

So far nothing has worked; not bailouts, or conversions to bank holding companies, not front page stories or investigative committees…nothing is helping the economic crisis it only continues to get worse.

What if we cannot stop the economic crisis from continuing to deteriorate, what if the economic levees break?

How is our government (Federal, State, Municipal) preparing for the worst case scenario?

How are we hoping they are preparing, what should we be expecting of them, what can we do?

cross-posted at Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Crossposted from the Wild Wild Left

Filed under “No shit, Seamus”…

“If stuff hasn’t worked and people don’t feel like I’ve led the country in the right direction, then you’ll have a new president.”

Obama’s statement is refreshingly bold for a politician, who rarely take responsibility for anything. Anything that fails that is. I’m positive that statement made people on the brink of losing everything feel like Obama himself is risking everything in his personal life too. This week he repeatedly made sure the blame for the current situation lay directly on the previous administrations lap. These darn bad guys messed us up, and you and I have it all on the line, folks!

Brilliant framing all around, doncha think?

However, he reserves the right to say, in the future, “Well the Republican’s way brought us here, the Democrats tried to restructure the economy with a bill and the Republicans watered it down with more of the same, and that’s why it failed. Now lets try it our way.” I predict within a year we will be hearing THAT speech. Pass the buck one-oh-one. Always leave yourself an out.

Mandatory lyric:

(…set up like a bowling pin,

knocked down,

it gets to wearing thin…)

The truth of the matter to me? He has been hard selling a watered down bill, yes, but rather than push the one we asked for; he is setting up the Republicans for more fall-guy blame. He is Campaigning already.

A new president, indeed.

The world is full of people paying for the economic fraud of unelected, rapacious and sociopathic dictators.

Latin America and Africa tend to be the hardest hit by this phenomena.

This is what happens:

Mr. Tin Pot Dictator runs up an incredible debt buying gold cadillacs and weapons with which to dominate and exploit the people of his country. The people suffer miserably, the Dictator lives a lavish lifestyle above the law until he is deposed in some manner, then the banks move in and enslave the people and control the sociopolitical landscape by leveraging that illegitimate debt against the progress of the population, innocent victims of authoritarian rule.

It seems to me that there’s been a quickening of this trend, and it’s taken place right here in America – naked right in the open. Bankers have muscled out the middle man, the Tin Pot Dictator, and have become the Dictators themselves.

Humans are hardwired to punish, and punishment is very effective at stopping undesired behavior. Many people believe that you have to put punishment on dogs using coercion, fear or intimidation to train them. This is called Positive Punishment.

The only problem with positive punishment is that there are often unintended consequences that arise the the use of it, sometimes these unintended consequences create more problems than they solve.

Positive trainers believe that reward and repetition and removal of good things (negative punishment) is better at creating, modifying and maintaining behavior than fear and intimidation.

This is sometimes a hard sell to clients. Some people will simply never be able to process and internalize the concepts of positive training, and that’s OK. We just send them to someone who employs fear and intimidation to train dogs. No big deal.

Ironically, the people most likely to be unable to accept positive training are the very people who are likely to believe that positive reinforcement and voluntary regulation will work for controlling institutional, human behavior, and that punishing them for bad behavior is wrong.

I have no idea why this is the case, but my experience tells me it is.

Welcome everyone to the latest edition in the Manufacturing series.  I do hope everyone is doing better than our economy.  The President was on television talking about jobs.  He had visited a town in Indiana where the unemployment rate had reached 18%.  The stimulus plan being laid before us, President Obama hopes, will eventually lead to several million jobs. But before we get to the latest on jobs and manufacturing, let’s look at this week’s Numbers.

 

According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D) (PA-11), in mid-September of 2008, the United States of America came just three hours away from the collapse of the entire economy. In a span of 2 hours, $550 billion was drawn out of money market accounts in an electronic run on the banks.

Rep. Kanjorski: “It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”

Kanjorski’s bombshell begins to detonate at roughly 2:10 into the video.

Partial transcript below the fold.