Globalisation debt & banking
I pulled the pin on the stock market in October.
Be aware that from February 1, 2012, the Federal Government will only guarantee the first $250,000 of bank deposits per institution, per person.
You need to think really hard about what that tells you.
Be aware that from February 1, 2012, the Federal Government will only guarantee the first $250,000 of bank deposits per institution, per person.
You need to think really hard about what that tells you.
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Foie gras, *WOW*. Ratigan speaks the truth on MSNBC and keeps his job! In 4:45 he encapsulates everything that is wrong with the system - the corrupt Banking/Political/Trading triad (although he missed the M.I.C) that is harvesting the US & Western world, until every last drop of blood has been squeezed from the system. Then it will be allowed to collapse as a broken shell, with the new Robber Barons sailing off into the sunset. The system has a limited life expectancy, plan accordingly.
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This is called the Euro Bailout Package.
Read carefully as I am sure this is exactly how it works.
It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a E100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the E100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the E100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the E100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the E100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.
The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the E100 note.
The hotel proprietor then places the E100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the E100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.
Simples!
Read carefully as I am sure this is exactly how it works.
It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a E100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the E100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the E100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the E100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the E100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.
The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the E100 note.
The hotel proprietor then places the E100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the E100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.
Simples!
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Here we are with planes grounded all over Australia because of the new age threat --- volcanic ash and jets -– they don’t mix
Professor Ian Plimer (a member of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide. He is also a joint member of the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering) could not have said it better!
If you've read his book you will agree, this is a good summary.
Are you sitting down?
Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet, all of you.
Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress, that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow, and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans, and all animal life.
I know, it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cents light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.
The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud any one time - EVERY DAY.
I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in its entire YEARS on earth. Yes folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year, think about it.
Of course I shouldn't spoil this touchy-feely tree-hugging moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keep happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.
And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.
Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you on the basis of the bogus ''human-caused'' climate change scenario.
Hey, isn't it interesting how they don't mention ''Global Warming'' any more, but just ''Climate Change'' - you know why? It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.
And just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme (that whopping new tax) imposed on you, that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer. It won't stop any volcanoes from erupting, that's for sure.
But hey, relax, give the world a hug and have a nice day!
PS: I wonder if Iceland is buying carbon offsets?
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T28D I want some of the **** you are smoking..Solid post!!
The putrid sulphur emissions are similar in nature to what merchant bankers emit; Smelly **** that can be invisible to those it effects yet be toxic to mass areas of population without them realising!
I think that may be what he is getting at? Or is that bankers and volcano's are deep pits of burning fire that consume anything in it's/their path?
and volcanic gas releases has exactly what to do with global debt and banking?
I think that may be what he is getting at? Or is that bankers and volcano's are deep pits of burning fire that consume anything in it's/their path?
I like the Dylan Ratigan clip, spot on !
Maybe someone here can explain why ANZ bank in Hong Kong is lending money in AUD @ a full 1% less than ANZ in Australia, and lending money in HKD at just over 2%. Yep, if you want to live in lovely HK, your monthly mortgage payment will be in the vicinity of 80% principal and 20% interest, I 5hit you not.
( I'm sure there is a logical, financial double speak, gobble de gook BS answer, but I don't buy it )
We are being royally screwed
Maybe someone here can explain why ANZ bank in Hong Kong is lending money in AUD @ a full 1% less than ANZ in Australia, and lending money in HKD at just over 2%. Yep, if you want to live in lovely HK, your monthly mortgage payment will be in the vicinity of 80% principal and 20% interest, I 5hit you not.
( I'm sure there is a logical, financial double speak, gobble de gook BS answer, but I don't buy it )
We are being royally screwed
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I can see T28s point precisely. There is a link between the manipulation of global markets and a carbon tax in terms of accelerating the movement of capital from the poor/middle/upper middle classes to the super rich. Time will tell.
No friggn' way. I like my SUV 
selling your SUV and speedboat
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Apart from the obvious, Tokyo, Geneva etc, In Hong Kong a flat that an Australian homeless person wouldn't live in is 1,000,000 AUD, western style groceries are on average 30% more expensive than Oz and fuel is nearly 2$ a litre, I think Australia has a ways to go. Don't even go down the tax road, as an expat in HK you get almost nothing for your 16%, not even clean air.
I should add, I'm not the slightest bit happy with the tax system and yes, the cost of living is getting ridiculous by Oz standards.
I should add, I'm not the slightest bit happy with the tax system and yes, the cost of living is getting ridiculous by Oz standards.
Grandpa Aerotart
There is a hell of a lot of BS conspiracy drivel on this thread but 'economist' Wolff takes the cake in many respects. The real reason real wages have declined since the 70s is because politicians, mostly but not exclusively of the left, have been printing money and wasting it.
Its just typical an 'economist' who self identifies as being of the Left would try to blame capitalism. You can also lay the blame for capitalisms failings - crony capitalism - mostly, but not exclusively, at the feet of left wing politicians.
Yes there is fault on both sides of the parliament but, as we have seen amply demonstrated, the preponderance is on the left.
If Wollf doesn't like capitalism what's his alternative - socialism?
When has that ever worked - EVER?
Its just typical an 'economist' who self identifies as being of the Left would try to blame capitalism. You can also lay the blame for capitalisms failings - crony capitalism - mostly, but not exclusively, at the feet of left wing politicians.
Yes there is fault on both sides of the parliament but, as we have seen amply demonstrated, the preponderance is on the left.
If Wollf doesn't like capitalism what's his alternative - socialism?
When has that ever worked - EVER?
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This following article by Michael West, in todays Australian on-line newspapers, reveals that all that has really happened since 2008, is that the financial crims are still in charge.
I admire Michael West as a very good, hard-hitting, investigative finance journalist. He regularly drops the biggest turds he can find, on the heads of those human banking-coterie turds, who are totally f##*king our world economic system, with their greed, lack of ethics, and outright criminality.
What is also totally amazing, as West points out, is that we have yet to see one handcuffed perp-walk, when it comes to making these financial manipulators pay... with real, jail-time penalties... for the financial crimes they have indulged in, and continue to indulge in.....
ANOTHER CRACK IN A ROTTEN SYSTEM
It's the season for gongs, those cheesy "best and worst of the year that was" wrap-ups. Worse even than gongs, a rash of the dreary "what the year ahead holds" stories is upon us.
Never fear, let us save you the effort. Here is what the pundits will say: challenges lie ahead, we are cautiously optimistic, we forecast equities to rise by 10 per cent in 2012. Bank it.
Top down, bottom up, name your methodology, they'll get there. Year in, year out, any big-city economist, strategist, or anything "ist", will tell you: "up 10 per cent, difficult environment, cautiously optimistic".
You can bet on that, but unless you are too big to fail, you can't bet on the market without risk.
Take Jon Corzine. Corzine has just found out he is not quite big enough to elude failure. His broking firm MF Global took a hairy-chested $US6.3 billion punt on European bonds - a bet more than five times the book value of the firm - and blew up. Worse, MF had gambled $US1.2 billion of its clients' funds, funds that were supposed to be in segregated accounts, sacrosanct.
And so it was that markets were perturbed again this week, and not just by the usual boondoggling in Europe. Yes, there was the spectre of deflation anew, which hurt asset prices. Speculators even took the long-handle to gold. But there was also Jon Corzine and the latest bogey-word - "re-hypothecation" - which shook the confidence of the trading cognoscenti.
Hypothecation is when borrower pledges capital. Re-hypothecation happens when a broker or a bank redeploys assets pledged as collateral by customers for its own borrowing. The risk is that somebody else controls those assets in the event of default.
So markets were spooked. Why didn't you tell me about this loophole in international brokerage borrowing rules? Are my funds safe? How about my counterparty's counterparties? What if I have been re-re-hypothecated? If they can pledge the money in my account to somebody else in cross-border mega-punt … get me out!
Corzine, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs and Democrat Senator, was ducking and weaving last night as Republicans went for his jugular for staying at the Ritz Carlton in Washington despite the vanishing of his clients' funds.
It was just another show trial on Capitol Hill. For all the corruption and the trillions of dollars lost in the past four years there is yet to be a "perp-walk".
Same deal here. Babcock, Allco, MFS, ABC, Rubicon. Nary a bad word or a slap on the wrist.
At least they handcuff them from the front when they perp-walk them stateside. But there has been none of that. And MF Global looks unlikely to be the first. Corzine is, after all, a big Democrat donor. Besides, it only got its dealer's licence from the Federal Reserve earlier this year, one of 22 licences to deal Treasury bonds. And apparently, gearing up client money on the sly and punting it is legal.
Under the Fed's Regulation T and SEC Rule 15c3-3, a prime broker may re-hypothecate assets to the value of 140 per cent of the client's liability to the prime broker.
In Britain, there is no statutory limit on how much you can re-hypothecate. All one needs is an office in London and a brass plaque.
According to Thompson Reuters, thanks to this "asymmetry of rules", by 2007 re-hypothecation had "grown so large that it accounted for half of the activity of the shadow banking system''.
So when you hear that old chestnut from your broker - "there's a lot of cash sitting on the sidelines" - just be mindful of the daisy-chain of financiers who might stake a claim to that "cash".
The International Monetary Fund reckons collateral has been "re-hypothecated to a factor of four".
Nor are Australia's banks quarantined from this staggering leverage. Hyper-hypothecation highlights how little grip regulators have on the complexities of world finance.
Be sure that when it comes to our banks, exposure to re-hypothecations will loom large among the host of toxic gremlins lurking off balance sheet. That's the problem, it's all off-balance sheet.
All we know for sure is that, whatever it is, we as taxpayers own it, thanks to "too big to fail" (mentality).
Not to worry, the world will muddle through. The next couple of months may be interesting though. Christmas is traditionally the time for a rally. It happens most years.
This year though, it may be tricky, what with band-aid solutions to the gaping wounds of Europe, marauding hedge funds and possibly the European Central Bank in holiday mode.
Just a thought, but sovereign bonds are vulnerable to attack. Holiday markets are illiquid. No doubt Jon Corzine's old firm, Goldman Sachs can do its bit.
It's latest corporate strategy is to "seed" a bevy of hedge funds with capital. Financed and schooled in the Goldman way - probably heavily re-hypothecated - these evil little mini-me Goldmans are being unleashed on the world, ready to hypothecate all over the place.
For its part, Goldman had hypothecated $US18 billion in capital as of September 2011. It was modest by Wall Street standards, as JP Morgan sold or re-pledged $US410 billion of collateral received under margin loans, derivative transactions, securities borrowed and reverse repurchase agreements.
The original article website: Another crack in a rotten system
I admire Michael West as a very good, hard-hitting, investigative finance journalist. He regularly drops the biggest turds he can find, on the heads of those human banking-coterie turds, who are totally f##*king our world economic system, with their greed, lack of ethics, and outright criminality.
What is also totally amazing, as West points out, is that we have yet to see one handcuffed perp-walk, when it comes to making these financial manipulators pay... with real, jail-time penalties... for the financial crimes they have indulged in, and continue to indulge in.....
ANOTHER CRACK IN A ROTTEN SYSTEM
It's the season for gongs, those cheesy "best and worst of the year that was" wrap-ups. Worse even than gongs, a rash of the dreary "what the year ahead holds" stories is upon us.
Never fear, let us save you the effort. Here is what the pundits will say: challenges lie ahead, we are cautiously optimistic, we forecast equities to rise by 10 per cent in 2012. Bank it.
Top down, bottom up, name your methodology, they'll get there. Year in, year out, any big-city economist, strategist, or anything "ist", will tell you: "up 10 per cent, difficult environment, cautiously optimistic".
You can bet on that, but unless you are too big to fail, you can't bet on the market without risk.
Take Jon Corzine. Corzine has just found out he is not quite big enough to elude failure. His broking firm MF Global took a hairy-chested $US6.3 billion punt on European bonds - a bet more than five times the book value of the firm - and blew up. Worse, MF had gambled $US1.2 billion of its clients' funds, funds that were supposed to be in segregated accounts, sacrosanct.
And so it was that markets were perturbed again this week, and not just by the usual boondoggling in Europe. Yes, there was the spectre of deflation anew, which hurt asset prices. Speculators even took the long-handle to gold. But there was also Jon Corzine and the latest bogey-word - "re-hypothecation" - which shook the confidence of the trading cognoscenti.
Hypothecation is when borrower pledges capital. Re-hypothecation happens when a broker or a bank redeploys assets pledged as collateral by customers for its own borrowing. The risk is that somebody else controls those assets in the event of default.
So markets were spooked. Why didn't you tell me about this loophole in international brokerage borrowing rules? Are my funds safe? How about my counterparty's counterparties? What if I have been re-re-hypothecated? If they can pledge the money in my account to somebody else in cross-border mega-punt … get me out!
Corzine, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs and Democrat Senator, was ducking and weaving last night as Republicans went for his jugular for staying at the Ritz Carlton in Washington despite the vanishing of his clients' funds.
It was just another show trial on Capitol Hill. For all the corruption and the trillions of dollars lost in the past four years there is yet to be a "perp-walk".
Same deal here. Babcock, Allco, MFS, ABC, Rubicon. Nary a bad word or a slap on the wrist.
At least they handcuff them from the front when they perp-walk them stateside. But there has been none of that. And MF Global looks unlikely to be the first. Corzine is, after all, a big Democrat donor. Besides, it only got its dealer's licence from the Federal Reserve earlier this year, one of 22 licences to deal Treasury bonds. And apparently, gearing up client money on the sly and punting it is legal.
Under the Fed's Regulation T and SEC Rule 15c3-3, a prime broker may re-hypothecate assets to the value of 140 per cent of the client's liability to the prime broker.
In Britain, there is no statutory limit on how much you can re-hypothecate. All one needs is an office in London and a brass plaque.
According to Thompson Reuters, thanks to this "asymmetry of rules", by 2007 re-hypothecation had "grown so large that it accounted for half of the activity of the shadow banking system''.
So when you hear that old chestnut from your broker - "there's a lot of cash sitting on the sidelines" - just be mindful of the daisy-chain of financiers who might stake a claim to that "cash".
The International Monetary Fund reckons collateral has been "re-hypothecated to a factor of four".
Nor are Australia's banks quarantined from this staggering leverage. Hyper-hypothecation highlights how little grip regulators have on the complexities of world finance.
Be sure that when it comes to our banks, exposure to re-hypothecations will loom large among the host of toxic gremlins lurking off balance sheet. That's the problem, it's all off-balance sheet.
All we know for sure is that, whatever it is, we as taxpayers own it, thanks to "too big to fail" (mentality).
Not to worry, the world will muddle through. The next couple of months may be interesting though. Christmas is traditionally the time for a rally. It happens most years.
This year though, it may be tricky, what with band-aid solutions to the gaping wounds of Europe, marauding hedge funds and possibly the European Central Bank in holiday mode.
Just a thought, but sovereign bonds are vulnerable to attack. Holiday markets are illiquid. No doubt Jon Corzine's old firm, Goldman Sachs can do its bit.
It's latest corporate strategy is to "seed" a bevy of hedge funds with capital. Financed and schooled in the Goldman way - probably heavily re-hypothecated - these evil little mini-me Goldmans are being unleashed on the world, ready to hypothecate all over the place.
For its part, Goldman had hypothecated $US18 billion in capital as of September 2011. It was modest by Wall Street standards, as JP Morgan sold or re-pledged $US410 billion of collateral received under margin loans, derivative transactions, securities borrowed and reverse repurchase agreements.
The original article website: Another crack in a rotten system
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There is a hell of a lot of BS conspiracy drivel on this thread but 'economist' Wolff takes the cake in many respects. The real reason real wages have declined since the 70s is because politicians, mostly but not exclusively of the left, have been printing money and wasting it.
and
What is also totally amazing, as West points out, is that we have yet to see one handcuffed perp-walk, when it comes to making these financial manipulators pay... with real, jail-time penalties... for the financial crimes they have indulged in, and continue to indulge in....
"When has that ever worked - EVER?"
Wow, what a black and white view you have. Can you define "worked". For whom? In what way? Can you name a nation state currently operated according to the principles of socialism as you then define it?
Capitalism and socialism are simply words manufactured to describe a theoretical approach to economic and social order. Neither have ever existed.
Wow, what a black and white view you have. Can you define "worked". For whom? In what way? Can you name a nation state currently operated according to the principles of socialism as you then define it?
Capitalism and socialism are simply words manufactured to describe a theoretical approach to economic and social order. Neither have ever existed.