FedUpUSA

Archive for May 25th, 2010

Bank Robbery in Reverse

Remember when it was little guys who robbed banks?

By Don Hank

Remember when little guys robbed banks? Well, now big crooked bankers rob us, thanks to the crooks we put in office.

Alternet recently ran an amazing article on the ten most corrupt capitalists. I take issue with the use of the word “capitalists” to refer to people whose behavior is best described by the term “fascist” or, as my UK friends politely say, “corporatist.”

But the point is, as a quick scan of that column shows, if you want to get rich through corruption, the winning formula is to be an investor who is well connected to government officials. The popular bank bailouts, started under G.W. Bush and pursued enthusiastically by the Obama administration, are the quintessence of the concept. The idea is to hit up the taxpayer to make your banking buds richer. Of course, no kickbacks ever occur, because crooked politicians wouldn’t stoop that low.

Most of us are vaguely aware that this phenomenon of government-private partnering as part of a get-rich scheme is not just happening in America. It is all the rage in Europe as well, and the following illustrates to just what extent.

Previously, we had run a German language column (no translation yet) at Laigle’s Forum exposing a giveaway of hard-earned EU taxpayer money to millionaire investors in Panama under the wafer-thin guise of “carbon credits.” I sent the column to a number of outlets and a Swiss publisher asked for permission to reprint it there. Briefly, the column shows that the investors received the cash because they planned to build a hydroelectric plant instead of a coal-fired power plant.

What’s wrong with that, you say?

Two things come to mind:

1—There never have been nor ever will be coal-fired power plants in Panama. Thanks to the country’s rich water resources, rivers brimming with enormous flows and lakes to back them up, anyone proposing the construction of a coal-fired plant would become laughingstock immediately. Therefore, the incentive is not an incentive.

2—The same people who want to give the “carbon credits” to Panama for not proposing a coal-fired plant are keen on distributing “carbon credit” wealth to the Tata company to build a coal-fired plant in Gujarat, India under the paper thin pretext that this plant is more efficient than ordinary coal-fired plants.

In other words, there is always an excuse to rob from the poor to give to the rich. The governments of 2 continents saw how readily we swallowed the warnings that the banks would all collapse without a bailout, and now the sky’s the limit.

Now here comes an even taller tale of poor-to-rich wealth redistribution — but a true one (sorry, I was unable to find an English language report on the web).

The report comes from a small conservative blog but is backed up by facts from German radio/TV giant ARD and the widely read mainstream German daily Welt, and my translation follows:

Banker profits most from bailout?

The billionaire rakes in an additional 12 billion from the billion euro grab in Germany. He’s friends with EU Chief Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso. Get the picture?

Naturally, the report by the ARD didn’t come out until after mental pygmies in the Bundestag (German Lower House) agreed to the package.

According to the report, the billionaire gets an additional 12 billion euros because ordinary Germans are being forced by greedy hands with long arms and fingers reaching into the multi-billion euro grab bag shoveled in by the Bundestag.  Is it insane to wonder whether money is being transferred to certain parties in Germany from these 12 billion extra euros that the billionaire will rake in? Are we out of our minds to think about a secret ugly but juicy kick-back?

The ARD web site explains the European Central Bank (EU) is buying Greek government junk bonds and that Spiro Latsis, Greece’s most powerful banker, is the chief beneficiary. Latsis is a personal friend of EU Commission Chief Barroso, who is one of the decision makers in the bailout process. The conflict of interests is obvious, and the ordinary Europeans who paid the bill now know this.

Once they have taken our last dime, we may all finally figure things out.

Just don’t expect to get your money back.

25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real

If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery.  In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before.  But is that really the case?  Of course not.  You would have to be delusional to believe that.  What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time.  But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse.  The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever.  At some point the charade is going to come crashing down. 

And GDP is not a really good measure of the economic health of a nation.  For example, if you would have looked at the growth of GDP in the Weimar republic in the early 1930s, you may have been tempted to think that the German economy was really thriving.  German citizens were spending increasingly massive amounts of money.  But of course that money was becoming increasingly worthless at the same time as hyperinflation spiralled out of control.

Well, today the purchasing power of our dollar is rapidly eroding as the price of food and other necessities continues to increase.  So just because Americans are spending a little bit more money than before really doesn’t mean much of anything.  As you will see below, there are a whole bunch of other signs that the U.S. economy is in very, very serious trouble. 

Any “recovery” that the U.S. economy is experiencing is illusory and will be quite temporary.  The entire financial system of the United States is falling apart, and the powers that be can try to patch it up and prop it up for a while, but in the end this thing is going to come crashing down.

But as obvious as that may seem to most of us, there are still quite a few people out there that are absolutely convinced that the U.S. economy will fully recover and will soon be stronger than ever.

So the following are 25 questions to ask anyone who is delusional enough to believe that this economic recovery is real….  

#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy?  In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011.  Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?

#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March.  This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005.  So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?

#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period.  That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.  Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?

#4) How can the U.S. real estate market be considered healthy when, for the first time in modern history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?

#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes, what do you think that is going to do to the price of gasoline in the United States and how do you think that will affect the U.S. economy?

#6) Do you think that it is a good sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, says that “terrible cuts” are urgently needed in order to avoid a complete financial disaster in his state?

#7) But it just isn’t California that is in trouble.  Dozens of U.S. states are in such bad financial shape that they are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades.  What do you think all of those budget cuts will do to the economy?

#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008.  Month after month after month we buy much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us.  Wealth is draining out of the United States at an unprecedented rate.  So is the fact that the gigantic U.S. trade deficit is actually getting bigger a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010, and considering the fact that if you went out and spent one dollar every single second it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars, how can anyone in their right mind claim that the U.S. economy is getting healthier when we are getting into so much debt?

#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. government suffered a wider-than-expected budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April.  So is the fact that the red ink of the U.S. government is actually worse than projected a good sign or a bad sign?

#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015.  So is that a sign of economic recovery or of economic disaster?

#12) Monstrous amounts of oil continue to gush freely into the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts are already projecting that the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast will be devastated for decades by this unprecedented environmental disaster.  In light of those facts, how in the world can anyone project that the U.S. economy will soon be stronger than ever?

#13) The FDIC’s list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high.  Do you think that an increasing number of small banks failing is a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke.  So what do you think will happen if a significant number of small banks do start failing?

#15) Existing home sales in the United States jumped 7.6 percent in April.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that this increase only happened because the deadline to take advantage of the temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe) was looming.  So now that there is no more tax credit for home buyers, what will that do to home sales? 

#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money.  So what does it say about the U.S. economy when the two “pillars” of the U.S. mortgage industry are government-backed financial black holes that the U.S. government has to relentlessly pour money into?

#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.  Tens of millions of Americans find themselves just one lawsuit, one really bad traffic accident or one very serious illness away from financial ruin.  With so many Americans living on the edge, how can you say that the economy is healthy?

#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent.  So can the U.S. really be experiencing an economic recovery when so many are still unemployed in one of America’s biggest cities?

#19) Gallup’s measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th.  That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.  Do you think that is a good trend or a bad trend?

#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession.  So are the vast majority of Americans just stupid or could we still actually be in a recession?

#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.  So is Barack Obama’s mantra that “what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street” actually true?

#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming.  Do you think that Richard Russell is delusional or could he possibly have a point?

#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010.  In fact, that was almost twice the level of a year earlier.  Does that look like a good trend to you?

#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% - the most in 16 years.  Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?

#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008.  Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005.  So shouldn’t we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words “economic recovery”?

I Know! Let’s Vilify Germany!

Posted by Karl Denninger

Amusing the articles on Bloomberg this morning… let’s start here:

“The situation has been tough for all of us, lawyers and regulators alike,” said Jochen Kindermann, a capital markets lawyer at Simmons & Simmons in Frankfurt. “The step was dropped on us like a bomb and no one really had any time to prepare.”

Germany was criticized for banning naked short selling of debt securities as well as naked credit-default swaps last week. BaFin published the ban late in the evening of May 18 and the rules took effect less than four hours later. Stocks around the world fell and Germany’s benchmark DAX Index dropped more than 8 percent since the ban was announced.

Awwwwww poor babies!  You mean that people who bill by the hour actually had to put in some billable hours on time other than 9-5 Monday – Friday? 

Then there’s this:

The euro crisis is looking more like a German crisis every day. The way the single currency now works is clear: It involves massive transfers of wealth from the richer to the poorer regions. And it means you have a soft, political currency. If Germany doesn’t like that, it should decide it doesn’t want to be part of the euro club anymore.

Crisis?

Germany has no crisis.  It has a pension funding problem but as a percentage of the budget, as a percentage of GDP, as a fiscal matter they look like the Girl Scouts at this party.

The amusing part of this is that without Germany the Euro probably trades at about 30 cents to the dollar.  Why?  Because the entire Euro zone’s GDP has been “borrow and blow”, just like it has been in the US, and without Germany to anchor this you’ll get some really amazing dislocations over in Europe.

I hope Germany does leave the Euro and goes back to the Mark.  They should.  There’s no more reason for them to support this nonsense than there is for China to play mercantilist with us in the intermediate and longer term, although this sort of thing always looks good in the short term.  In China’s case their exports to America have been subsidized, and now Germany is being told they must do the same.

Bah.

Nations should do the right thing, which means stopping spending money they cannot obtain by actual taxation.

Note what Geithner said today:

European leaders face “the difficult challenge of trying to restore sustainability to an unsustainable system,” Geithner said earlier in Beijing today.

Oh really Timmy?  How about restoring sustainability to an unsustainable system IN THE UNITED STATES?

The “Pump Brigade” was out this morning in force on CNBS as the futures were down 200 DOW points and 25 handles on the S&P.  Why?  Well gee, you think there might be recognition that the concept of spending more than you make must end at some point, and when the point comes not through your decision to stop being a profligate jackass but because your creditors start jacking up the cost of borrowing more money this leads to an economic dislocation?

How many times do we need to see this movie?

Iceland proved what happens when you borrow and spend money you don’t have on an indefinite forward basis and the bubble pops.  We learned nothing from it and didn’t stop it, and a year later the same thing happened to Greece.

Now we have the very same pumpers claiming this is “irrational fear” in the markets today, and that “it won’t come here, America is strong.”

Uh huh.

We’re spending 11% of GDP beyond what we have with the government borrowing it and blowing it.  Remove that and GDP contracts by at least $1.5 trillion instantly and the economists all scream “DEPRESSION!“

The choice we have today is the same choice we had in 2000, 2007 and last year: We can either accept the damage that we have caused by our own hand – not as an accident, but as a consequence of our idiocy – or we can continue with the same Wimpy econolies that got us into this mess in the first place and instead of having a lot of damage we can have an economic catastrophe.

We cannot increase taxes to get out of this.  Historically, no matter the tax rate, governments seem to be unable to collect more than about 20% of GDP in taxes.  With a $14 trillion economy this means the federal government has to be limited to about $2.8 trillion in size maximum, and somewhat less during recessions (like now, for instance.)

But it’s not – it’s $4 trillion and growing.

The gap, currently $1.5 trillion, cannot be closed by “slowing the growth of the budget.”

The ugly truth is that most of what The Federal Government does is unconstitutional.  The Education and Agriculture Departments, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security – all unconstitutional.  Yet we don’t care so long as “we get ours.”

This has to change.  “I got mine, now screw you” as a personal attitude must change.

If it does not, we will become Greece.