Departmental Updates

From the "Does history repeat itself?" department:

(Source: "US Housing Prices Mirror Japan’s Experience.")

From the "Does this make any sense?" department:

(Data source: "Business Roundtable Releases Fourth Quarter 2011 CEO Economic Outlook.")

From the "How long can they keep this leaking equity ship afloat?" department:

(Data source: Morningstar, Inc.)

And today's special bonus (courtesy of the BBC and Youtube):

(Note: Episode two can be seen here.)

Comments

[mark]

Please take the 2012 'Best Investment' poll: http://www.planbeconomics.com/polls/

Thanks!

[Tom]

These videos are ridiculous - rah,rah let's all be like Germany and China since it's all about MONEY. The reality is far more dire for everyone and nobody (as far as "leaders" go) is paying any attention to it. Make all the money you want, but when there isn't any food you're gonna starve like everyone else. Climate change is going to DECIMATE the global population in the coming years PRECISELY because we continue to "live" via this wanton extraction of dwindling resources and polluting the biosphere with no concern. It's getting worse by the year and we continue blithely along doing the same actions that got us into this mess. Now that methane (many times worse than CO2 in its effects on the atmosphere)is gushing into the atmosphere the climate effects are going to ramp up even more significantly. Humanity is on its way out.

[Wake up]

"Does history repeat itself?" ??????????
LISTEN

December 14 - Obama Will Not Veto the Assault on the Bill of Rights

We begin with Shahid Buttar, the executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee to discuss the contents of the Defense Authorization bill the President had threatened to veto but now appears willing to sign into law. We examine provisions in the bill the Pentagon and the FBI opposed which the White House now accepts and determine how much they pose a threat to the civil liberties of Americans exercising their constitutional rights under the first, fifth and sixth amendments.

http://ianmasters.com/sites/default/files/mp3/bbriefing_2011_12_14a_rashid%20buttar.mp3

http://ianmasters.com/content/december-14-obama-will-not-veto-assault-bill-rights-real-reason-post-office-going-broke-can-

[Half full or half empty?]

Census data: Half of U.S. poor or low income

(AP)

WASHINGTON - Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too `rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57343397/census-data-half-of-u.s-poor-or-low-income/

[Rocky]

Sooner or later, the Chinese will stop propping up the US bond market and then the party will really be over. Enjoy it while you still can.

[STOP THE SAVE OUR CRONIES MOVEMENT]

If...

The Truth Hurts--And Heals (December 15, 2011)

Confidence in a systemically corrupt financial system cannot be restored without a complete public exposure of all the lies, fraud, misinformation and complicity.

The truth has a unique sting, and an equally unique ability to heal the destruction wrought by dishonesty, fraud and lies. The truth hurts, because the daylight of truth demands changes that the self-serving and those in denial desperately wish to avoid.

But there can be no healing or reconciliation without the truth, baldly stated and plainly spoken without artifice or spin.

If we can finally be truthful with ourselves as a nation, then we must admit that our financial system is fundamentally based on lies, fraud, embezzlement, misinformation, perverse filters and incentives, shadow systems that mock transparency and regulation, class privilege and the systemic flouting of the rule of law.

This is the truth that hurts because it reveals the financial system as one stupendous exploitative fraud; but it also reveals the complicity and irrelevance of our judicial system and the complete capture of the legislative and Executive processes of governance.

There is a system of government in which rule of law is merely a propaganda screen, where financial and political Elites run the show and escape the consequences of their actions: it's called tyranny. The truth is that we live in a financial tyranny.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec11/truth-hurts-heals12-11.html

Then help change it....

A message from John Tate - Ron Paul Tea Party Money Bomb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L441IHctqsM&feature=colike

[sharonsj]

This is now a world-wide house of cards. The Fed just lent anywhere from $7 to $15 trillion to bail out domestic and international banks--and they don't have the money to back up the loan. Instead it is assumed that our government will come to the rescue again with taxpayer money. If that happens, I bet you'll see a genuine revolution, because we're going in that direction anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm still stocking up on food....

[GoneWithTheWind]

New laws:
1.Require a percentage of all products to be made in the U.S. Say 25% the first year to give the markets time to adjust and then 50% from then on.
2. Change all trade agreements to include a simple little phrase; "the trade between any country and the U.S. must not create a trade deficit". That is if China sells us $1 trillion in goods then they must buy $1 trillion from us. Who wouldn't agree to that? It is fair and just. If any country falls behind then we stop their goods from entering our country until they catch up.
3.All shipping must use a certain percentage of American workers and American vessels. Start off easy to allow a changeover to the new rules, say 25% of all ships entering our ports must be built in the U.S. be captained by a U.S. citizen and have at least 25% of the crew be U.S. citizens. Then the second year go to 50%. And of course the company owning the ships would have to be U.S. companies as well. More then fair.

Problem solved!

[Rocky]

GWTW: I suspect your recommendations would be highly inflationary and would effectively wipe out much of the savings of older Americans.

[Granpa]

sharonsj ....... smoot hawley ..... your talking protectionism. If you were to revert to a REAL gold standard then when the dollars you had spen overseas were presented for PAYMENT ... any gold left in the US would have to be sent overseas. This would soon prevent any further imports as they would be much too expensive. This is pricisely why Nixon reneaged on the GOLD contract and began Americas greatest ever export US Dollars. There are now so many out there all the gold in the world wouldn't settle the debt.

[sharonsj]

If I was talking protectionism, I'd be calling for tariffs. That's not what I'm saying. The Fed lent money it doesn't have to prop up banks worldwide--and it's still not enough. When the bills come due, the banks go to their respective governments and demand more bailouts or they will tank the economy. That's what is happening now in the European Union.

If our banks, which are still too big to fail and which are still gambling with risky derivatives, fail again, they will demand another taxpayer rescue. You already see Americans grumbling about having to keep the unemployed and homeless from starving. What do you think will happen when we're faced with both more debt and austerity to save the banks?

[Silver Huntress]

For those demonizing 'protectionism' and bemoaning Smoot-Hawley as somehow the cause or contributor to the Great Depression, please read history instead of mindlessly repeating right wing globalist *free trade* talking points.

No nation that fails to defend its sovereign borders has prospered. That includes protecting borders and citizens against foreign armies, and against hostile trade powers. Warfare comes in many guises, it's important to be capable of fighting any and all of them appropriately. Our militarized system, pumped up by 30+ years of military stimulus spending which has wildly misallocated the nation's labor and capital resources, can only see one way of fighting: more hardware, drones, and bombs. This is bankrupting our nation.

It's a fiction that Smoot-Hawley touched off a trade war that worsened the Depression. Total trade was miniscule relative to GDP at the time, between 0.4 and 0.8 percent of GDP. A less than 1% factor could hardly have caused a recession, let alone a Depression. The drop in total trade was also negligible: GDP dropped $47.2B from 1929 to 1930. The drop in "Total Trade" from 1929 to 1933 was only $0.54B. The drop in "Total Trade" from 1929 to 1933 was only 1.2 percent of the drop in GDP over that same period. Again, it's impossible that a 1 percent effect could cause an economic collapse like the Great Depression.

According to Peter Temin, a distinguished economist at MIT, exports were 7% of American GDP in 1929. They fell by 1.5 percentage points in the next two years.

Given the fall in world demand during that time, not all of the 1.5% fall can be attributed to other countries' retaliation against the US tariffs. But even if it were - overall, GNP over the same period fell by a whopping 15%.

Opposing "protectionism" amounts to advocating unilateral disarmament at a time of economic war by hostile foreign powers such as fascist China. This is economic treason!

[Doable Finance]

Whomever does whatever talk has the smell of political gain. Remove politics and you have a chance of fixing the economy.