Monday Madness: G20 FinMins Set 2-Week Deadline [View article]
Well it's a simplification, of course. The point is that you increase the money supply by 50% and if we simply go back to the same level of consumption we had 3 years ago - then GDP expands by 50%. We're not consuming 33% less, there's a multiplying effect in between 0% and 50% and all sorts of numbers you can plug into a formula after spending a few years in grad school studying monetary theory but, the short story is - more money moving slower = steady GDP. More money moving faster = rising GDP. Rising GDP not keeping up with real gains in production/consumption = inflation. There's at least $35,000 worth of grad school for you!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Another way to look at America is it's like a business with 200 employees and you have cut salaries to the bone (and raided the pension plan) but your minimal outflows are $1M a month and your inflows are only $800K (20% deficit) a month and the boss's salary is $200K and month and there are 2 top execs making $100K a month and 7 managers making $25K a month and 30 top workers making $5,000 a month and 160 workers making $1,400 a month and $100K in overhead ($1M total). And, by the way, this is "well distributed" for an average corporation (or country) where, the average CEO makes $11.4M, which is as much as 300 average workers!
Well, you can’t cut overhead because it’s leased and you need the space, etc. and your equipment and infrastructure is already falling apart from neglect. And you can’t pay the workers less as you are bumping up against minimum wage and you’ve already cut all their benefits and stolen the pension money to keep things running.
What more can you do? Well the solution to management is obvious – cut some workers! While that might work for a company, as a country we are "stuck" with the people we fire so now America has to take a real look at the salaries of the boss, the two top two executives, the 7 managers, and the 30 "upper middle class" workers, which account for 65% of the companies expenses and, so far, haven’t been affected by cutbacks.
In fact, in 10 years of salary cutbacks and layoffs (after we opened that disastrous ski store in Iraq, which the board of directors refuses to close), the company is producing less than it used to but, for some insane reason, the top 10 employees RAISED their salaries from $300,000 to $475,000 a month as a "reward" for the savings they made cutting back 10% of the workforce and cutting salaries and benefits of the remaining 190 employees to the bone (in real money terms, they now make less money than they did in 1970).
There will be no victory dances by the bottom 95% when the top 5% finally realize they need to make sacrifices too. Poor people will not feel better because it doesn’t help them one bit when it’s finally our turn to pay. I am very positive that our Government will make absolutely sure that they don’t derive one bit of benefit from the bare minimum it takes for us to keep the "business" of America running.
Trust me, within the top 10 employees, if there’s a way the top 3 can screw the next 7 over – they will! And within the top 3 – well, needless to say the top 1 is the last guy that’s going to put his hand into his pockets, even though he’s pulling a a salary that is the entirety of the deficit.
I love the people in the top 10% who want to blame "this mess" on others: Did you vote for Reagan or Bush or Bush? Did you vote for local people who said you didn’t have to pay taxes? Did you vote for people who wanted to build a working base or make our country competitive in some field besides banking and war?
Did you cheer for a war without paying for the war? Did you object to the fact that SS and Medicare were insolvent long-term and demand your representatives fix the problem by raising contributions or did you expect that cutting benefits below the poverty line would solve the problem? Did it bother you that health care costs were taking over 15% of our GDP or was that just a problem for our 40M uninsured?
Did you care that companies like GE do 1% of the nation’s total GDP in business ($150Bn a year), pay out tens of Billions in executive salaries but not a penny of taxes or did you tell your accountant to find you some of them loopholes? Did you worry that all our manufacturing jobs were moving overseas or did you enjoy the "savings" while the middle class crumbled around you.
Sure the top 1% have amassed a great fortune by stripping the wealth away from the bottom 99% but they wrecked the country to do it.
Now all the fools and their money will be easily parted but that’s what happens to "leaders" (business or government) who don’t actually lead but instead take whatever they can like a parasite - until the day they finally kill the host.
Well, the host IS dying and to top 1% are still killing it and they are about to attack the next 10% (as I have long warned) rather than make sacrifices to save the host body we call America. Your remaining choice is to be smarter than a virus or to go down with the ship. Think of that when you vote.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
A poker game is a great analogy with various rounds in which the "winners" bring the chips up to the next level tables. That's what this economy is - You start with 1.4M tables of 10 workers each and 90% of them lose in round one (the bottom 90%) and all of their chips are taken by the winners to the next level where there are 140,000 tables of 10 and just 14,000 of those people take their chips and advance to the top 1%.
Fortunately, in the second round, the losers get a consolation prize that is enough to live on. That way, as soon at the bottom 90% have some money again - they can jump back on the lower tables and rake more profits up to the top!
In the third round, there are just 1,400 tables of 10 and the fighting is rough but even the losers get a nice prize. Enough to keep them near the top so they never have to compete at the lower levels.
Round 4, just 140 tables of 10 left and we're into the top 0.01% of our nation's wage earners. Even the losers here end up with 1,000 times more than people at the entry tables have to play with. These are long, drawn out games because all the players have tremendous stacks of chips, making bets of millions at a time as the stacks move back and forth.
Finally in round 5, there are just 14 tables of 10 - the top half of the Forbes 400, who earn an average of over $1Bn per year each. Every 60 minutes, these guys make $500,000, over twice as much as the entire betting pool of the first two round tables combined! These guys will never see a round 3 table again but they live in dire fear of getting knocked back to round 4 and they'll do anything to win - even cheat, so watch them closely!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Good question as the US borrows $120Bn a month so, if we hit the debt limit and can't borrow any money, $120Bn a month of Government spending needs to be cut immediately. Assuming we continue to service $30Bn of monthly debt, that leaves $270Bn of monthly spending to be cut 44%. If we don't defund our $70Bn worth of military spending, that leaves just $200Bn a month of government spending that needs to be cut 60% immediately.
Amazingly, people can't do this simple math to see how ridiculous it is to say that it wouldn't matter if we don't raise the debt ceiling and it is astounding that an elected member of Congress could even consider this alternative.
It's like running up $100,000 in credit card bills and THEN calling the bank and everyone you have made other commitments to and saying "I'm sorry but my family voted not to extend our debt ceiling". See if that "doesn't matter."
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Hopefully we will - the Republican Congress has a record high 82% disapproval rating with just 3 months to go before voter pull the lever. I doubt this weekend's news will improve their chances for re-election this year.
Wednesday Worries: Yentervention, Euro Style [View article]
Wednesday Worries: Yentervention, Euro Style [View article]
Wednesday Worries: Yentervention, Euro Style [View article]
Monday Madness: G20 FinMins Set 2-Week Deadline [View article]
Spark notes is good for this stuff: http://bit.ly/prNww9
Holy Cow Thursday: Give Us a Break! [View article]
www.zerohedge.com/site...
Holy Cow Thursday: Give Us a Break! [View article]
www.philstockworld.com.../
Back to cashy and cautious once this rally peters out.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
www.philstockworld.com.../
Also, there's a free trial of Stock World Weekly, which has an excellent analysis as well:
www.philstockworld.com.../
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Well, you can’t cut overhead because it’s leased and you need the space, etc. and your equipment and infrastructure is already falling apart from neglect. And you can’t pay the workers less as you are bumping up against minimum wage and you’ve already cut all their benefits and stolen the pension money to keep things running.
What more can you do? Well the solution to management is obvious – cut some workers! While that might work for a company, as a country we are "stuck" with the people we fire so now America has to take a real look at the salaries of the boss, the two top two executives, the 7 managers, and the 30 "upper middle class" workers, which account for 65% of the companies expenses and, so far, haven’t been affected by cutbacks.
In fact, in 10 years of salary cutbacks and layoffs (after we opened that disastrous ski store in Iraq, which the board of directors refuses to close), the company is producing less than it used to but, for some insane reason, the top 10 employees RAISED their salaries from $300,000 to $475,000 a month as a "reward" for the savings they made cutting back 10% of the workforce and cutting salaries and benefits of the remaining 190 employees to the bone (in real money terms, they now make less money than they did in 1970).
There will be no victory dances by the bottom 95% when the top 5% finally realize they need to make sacrifices too. Poor people will not feel better because it doesn’t help them one bit when it’s finally our turn to pay. I am very positive that our Government will make absolutely sure that they don’t derive one bit of benefit from the bare minimum it takes for us to keep the "business" of America running.
Trust me, within the top 10 employees, if there’s a way the top 3 can screw the next 7 over – they will! And within the top 3 – well, needless to say the top 1 is the last guy that’s going to put his hand into his pockets, even though he’s pulling a a salary that is the entirety of the deficit.
I love the people in the top 10% who want to blame "this mess" on others: Did you vote for Reagan or Bush or Bush? Did you vote for local people who said you didn’t have to pay taxes? Did you vote for people who wanted to build a working base or make our country competitive in some field besides banking and war?
Did you cheer for a war without paying for the war? Did you object to the fact that SS and Medicare were insolvent long-term and demand your representatives fix the problem by raising contributions or did you expect that cutting benefits below the poverty line would solve the problem? Did it bother you that health care costs were taking over 15% of our GDP or was that just a problem for our 40M uninsured?
Did you care that companies like GE do 1% of the nation’s total GDP in business ($150Bn a year), pay out tens of Billions in executive salaries but not a penny of taxes or did you tell your accountant to find you some of them loopholes? Did you worry that all our manufacturing jobs were moving overseas or did you enjoy the "savings" while the middle class crumbled around you.
Sure the top 1% have amassed a great fortune by stripping the wealth away from the bottom 99% but they wrecked the country to do it.
Now all the fools and their money will be easily parted but that’s what happens to "leaders" (business or government) who don’t actually lead but instead take whatever they can like a parasite - until the day they finally kill the host.
Well, the host IS dying and to top 1% are still killing it and they are about to attack the next 10% (as I have long warned) rather than make sacrifices to save the host body we call America. Your remaining choice is to be smarter than a virus or to go down with the ship. Think of that when you vote.
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Fortunately, in the second round, the losers get a consolation prize that is enough to live on. That way, as soon at the bottom 90% have some money again - they can jump back on the lower tables and rake more profits up to the top!
In the third round, there are just 1,400 tables of 10 and the fighting is rough but even the losers get a nice prize. Enough to keep them near the top so they never have to compete at the lower levels.
Round 4, just 140 tables of 10 left and we're into the top 0.01% of our nation's wage earners. Even the losers here end up with 1,000 times more than people at the entry tables have to play with. These are long, drawn out games because all the players have tremendous stacks of chips, making bets of millions at a time as the stacks move back and forth.
Finally in round 5, there are just 14 tables of 10 - the top half of the Forbes 400, who earn an average of over $1Bn per year each. Every 60 minutes, these guys make $500,000, over twice as much as the entire betting pool of the first two round tables combined! These guys will never see a round 3 table again but they live in dire fear of getting knocked back to round 4 and they'll do anything to win - even cheat, so watch them closely!
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
8-)
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]
Amazingly, people can't do this simple math to see how ridiculous it is to say that it wouldn't matter if we don't raise the debt ceiling and it is astounding that an elected member of Congress could even consider this alternative.
It's like running up $100,000 in credit card bills and THEN calling the bank and everyone you have made other commitments to and saying "I'm sorry but my family voted not to extend our debt ceiling". See if that "doesn't matter."
S&P Downgrades U.S. to AA+ - We're Tied With Belgium! [View article]