The Facts Say Otherwise

Key gauges of manufacturing activity in three major economies -- the eurozone, China, and Japan -- have, for six months or more, been below the levels that prevailed at the start of the 2007 recession. While the U.S. counterpart remains modestly above where it was four years ago, it has recently faltered, hitting it's lowest level in three months.

Taken together, these widely-regarded indicators suggest that the path of least resistance for the global economy is down.

While it is nice to imagine that the "data" points to what some have described as a self-sustaining recovery, these (and other) facts say otherwise.

And for those who would argue that the U.S. can grow stronger stronger while the rest of the world weakens, I suggest they do a bit of research on that oft-repeated-but-still-untrue urban legend known as "decoupling."

Comments

[One big fudge factory]

Too Crooked to Fail
The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?

It's been four years since the government, in the name of preventing a depression, saved this megabank from ruin by pumping $45 billion of taxpayer money into its arm. Since then, the Obama administration has looked the other way as the bank committed an astonishing variety of crimes – some elaborate and brilliant in their conception, some so crude that they'd be beneath your average street thug. Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders, pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314#ixzz1pDu1SrAH

[Everyone's scratching their heads]

California Tax Revenues Plunge; Businesses Exit "Taxifornia" in Droves; Piecing Together the Jobs-Picture Puzzle

Something About the Economy Doesn't Add Up

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/03/california-tax-revenues-plunge.html

[MG]

"Something About the Economy Doesn't Add Up"

I agree. Gasoline sales down, vehicle miles travelled at levels from ten years ago. GS and JPM lower GDP forecasts for the first quarter to under 2% yet the economy is created 200k+ jobs a month?

They lied us into a war with Iraq, spread fear in a similar manner with "Give us $700b or everything will collapse" so fudging job numbers, survey data is not hard to believe

[MG]

VMT vs. GDP

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2lvuts2c4RGNzVmYjA1OTgtMTJjMi00N2Q4LTg2YWUtYzNlYmQxOTgzOGNj/edit

[No Country For Constitutional Men]

The next time someone tells you that nobody could see the implosion coming, read them this quote from Atlas Shrugged. It's us looking at our society in a mirror. We are there!

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion- When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice- you may know that your society is doomed."

[A noose solves abuse]

America’s public morality crisis

There is moral rot in America but it’s not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It’s located in the public behavior of people who control our economy and are turning our democracy into a financial slush pump. It’s found in Wall Street fraud, exorbitant pay of top executives, financial conflicts of interest, insider trading and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign “donations.”

Since 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed 25 cases against mortgage originators and securities firms. A few are still being litigated but most have been settled. They’ve generated almost $2 billion in penalties and other forms of monetary relief, according to the Commission. But almost none of this money has come out of the pockets of CEOs or other company officials; it has come out of the companies — or, more accurately, their shareholders. Federal prosecutors are now signaling they won’t even bring charges in the brazen case of MF Global, which lost billions of dollars that were supposed to be kept safe.

Nor have any of the lawyers, accountants, auditors, or top executives of credit-rating agencies who aided and abetted Wall Street financiers been charged with doing anything wrong.

But abuses of public trust such as we’ve witnessed for years on the Street and in the executive suites of our largest corporations are not matters of private morality. They’re violations of public morality. They undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy. They’ve led millions of Americans to conclude the game is rigged.

http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/americas_public_morality_crisis/singleton/

[No Country For Constitutional Men]

ANSA, Touche' with your post, and especially the last paragraph. People still wonder after millinnia of history why Empires die. Wonder no more. All feature currency debasement and default as a sypmtom of a greater problem which the article's last paragraph so eloquently makes clear.

You can clearly see this is happening when there have been at least 14 continuous weeks of withdrawls from equity funds while the S&P is up 15+%. People are wising up to the fact that it's all a rigged game where, heads the bankers win while tails the citizens lose. They can throw a 1000 - 1500 point pounding on investors through their HFT operations at will. It's always the question of when they run out of greater fools. It happens with every bubble.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and I'm a freaking fool.

[Numbers were made to be adjusted?]

They'd steal a lollipop out of a baby's hand to satisfy their agendas...

If you got 15 percent less for basically the same price, would you not call this a price rise?

http://maxkeiser.com/2012/03/16/if-you-got-15-percent-less-for-basically-the-same-price-would-you-not-call-this-a-price-rise/

[roger]

Moral conceptions change,they are not carved in stone.
Even in the jungle,wild animals have their own play of
morality. Create a society where opportunity's are unlimited
and you get unlimited corruption.
How many of us would resit the corruptible power of
a billion?

[sharonsj]

Geez, what do you expect when most of our manufacturers have moved overseas--and they continue to get tax credits to do it? Every time someone in Congress tries to change the law, the Republicans block it.

The stock market is a casino and the banks control Congress. There is no connection between the price of stocks and how these companies are actually doing. Also, we are producing more gasoline than ever, but we're shipping it overseas. And demand for gas in the U.S. has steadily gone down. Supply and demand doesn't work when prices are controlled by speculators.

And if I hear any more conservatives tell me there is no global warming, that the Keystone pipeline will bring us energy security, and that only they can tell women when to have kids, I'm reaching for my rifle.

[Sometimes propaganda doesn't get digested]

It looks like some people are frustrated by the recovery meme?

FATHER MORAL HAZARD
The person who wrote this article is already known to be a consummate nave and unapologetic Bankster tool. He insists that no actionable crimes were committed by Wall Street in the Subprime meltdown. Word brothers and sisters.

Now he posits the question: why is our 'savior' Ben Bernanke so hated?
Look at the discerning pious grin on this central planning fool.

You want to know why he is universally loathed by those of us who know better?
He is the one most responsible for institutionalizing the towering babel of financial moral hazard that has poisoned the global economy.

Wondering why Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon are chronically recurring raw nerves afflicting the popular psyche.

Because this man shields them from being held justly accountable. Accountable for leading their storied institutions in a perpetually sequenced crime spree of economic rape, pillage and fiduciary sodomy. Reset...

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-11-16/father-moral-hazard-ship-fraud?

[Rocky]

Everyone's: Re California Personal Income Tax

I suspect more very wealthy individuals are leaving the California, as far as their main residence is concerned. Move to Incline Village, NV and just fly in to the Bay area for the occasional business meeting. Not too long ago, I read that there were fewer than 30,000 individuals in the state who made at least $1 million per year. Maybe some of them now consider themselves Nevada residents.

[D]

Well, your displayed chart could just as likely be interpretted as a recovery with the next move up as most economic indicators have been positive over the past 6 months.

Fortunately, I was already fooled once by this in 2008, not again. I expect I'll be shorting the market when QE doesn't hold it up anymore before 2013.

And Rocky, I'd like to move to incline village and telecommute to SF if you know of openings; love tahoe.

[Rocky]

D: I am talking about self-made businessmen and women, not grunts who are looking for a McJob.

[No Country For Constitutional Men]

D, does this chart from Market Ticker look like a recovery, and do you understand exponential math?

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=2772

[mis sold ppi]

There is moral rot in America but it’s not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It’s located in the public behavior of people who control our economy and are turning our democracy into a financial slush pump. It’s found in Wall Street fraud, exorbitant pay of top executives, financial conflicts of interest, insider trading and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign “donations.”
______________
Jenni