27 replies to this topic

[abbyjoseph]

I have said it many times in these pages: economic growth in the U.S. economy can only occur when the general standard of living for the average American improves. Sadly, each day, we see more and more evidence suggesting the opposite.

Consider the results from the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. (Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute, March 2014.) This survey asks workers and retirees about how they feel about retirement, among many other things. Here are a few of the highlights:

This article 36% of American Workers Have Savings of Less Than $1,000 was originally posted at Profit Confidential

[Douglas]

AbbeyJoseph, the FED is crushing savers. No one in their right mind saves money when paid less than the real rate of inflation. Reported inflation rates are a joke. The cost of everything bought by folks that don't spend all their money on technology is rising at twice the reported rate. Negative yields have turned conservative savers into gamblers reaching for yield in riskier and riskier instruments. It's impossible to know when this bubble will burst, so buy the dip is still the mantra, but trailing stops are a necessity. Regards, Douglas

[nimblebear]

I have said it many times in these pages: economic growth in the U.S. economy can only occur when the general standard of living for the average American improves. Sadly, each day, we see more and more evidence suggesting the opposite.

Consider the results from the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. (Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute, March 2014.) This survey asks workers and retirees about how they feel about retirement, among many other things. Here are a few of the highlights:

This article 36% of American Workers Have Savings of Less Than $1,000 was originally posted at Profit Confidential

Why would one need more than $1000, when there is social security, welfare checks, free Obama phones, ACA!, medicare, and EBT cards ? Americans have it made in the shade !

[AChartist]

The austrian crack up boom does require one to spend any intake before price rises, it
could be on long term food storage for example. ( 2014 food inflation 19% y-t-d ? , who could
have seen it coming? )


I like this article, tells it like it is.

I think definition for waving dead chickens in the air is, printing up some treasuries, booking it as asset, fractionalizing and rehypothocating several times.



http://www.zerohedge...overy-heres-why

Dear Keynesians: Your Sad Devotion To A Failed Religion Hasn't Conjured Up A Recovery; Here's Why
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/27/2014 - 12:55
The central premise of the Keynesian Cargo Cult is that this mechanism of making it cheap and easy to borrow money will work a kind of magic that can only be manifested by dancing around a fire at night waving dead chickens and chanting "humba-humba." The Keynesian cargo Cult calls this magic "animal spirits." Unfortunately, waving dead chickens while dancing around a fire doesn't do anything in the real world, and neither does making it cheap and easy to borrow more money. You poor, dumb, deluded fools. You've destroyed our economy, our values and our ability to deal with reality. Your faith is as boundless and disconnected from the real world as your policies.

[stocks]

Dear Keynesians: Your Sad Devotion to Your Failed Religion Hasn't Conjured Up a Recovery--Here's Why

That any schoolkid could predict eliminating feedback and consequences will lead to a series of disastrously poor choices by speculators and imprudent borrowers doesn't register with the Keynesian Cargo Cult.

The central premise of the Keynesian Cargo Cult is that this mechanism of making it cheap and easy to borrow money will work a kind of magic that can only be manifested by dancing around a fire at night waving dead chickens and chanting "humba-humba." The Keynesian cargo Cult calls this magic "animal spirits."

Unfortunately, waving dead chickens while dancing around a fire doesn't do anything in the real world, and neither does making it cheap and easy to borrow more money. It turns out that prudent people have no interest in borrowing more money, even at low rates of interest, and imprudent people are happy to do so but will stop paying the loan as soon as something untoward occurs in their finances. The cheap, easy-to-get loans default and either the banks who made the loans collapse or the taxpayers have to bail out the banks who foolishly lent money to imprudent borrowers at super-low rates of interest.

The Keynesian Cargo Cult's solution allows no feedback from the real world, and allows no mechanism to discipline the imprudent borrower/speculator. If imprudent borrowers take on too much debt, the Keynesian Cargo Cult's solution is to offer them more credit at rates they can afford--near-0% if necessary.

If a speculator borrows money and loses it in a high-risk gamble, the Keynesian Cargo Cult's solution is to force the taxpayer to make good the gambler's losses and then give the speculator more nearly-free money to continue gambling.

This "solution" works the first time around, less well the second time around, and triggers a collapse the third time around.


http://www.oftwomind...esians3-14.html

[stocks]

Fed’s Bubble Finance Is Primary Cause of Massive Wealth Gains At The Top

The Fed makes essentially limitless funds available to banks and financiers at near-zero interest rates. Try borrowing $100,000 from the Fed at 0.1% interest; you can’t. That privilege is reserved for financial predators and parasites.

It’s important to note that capital is not monolithic, nor is all capital qualitatively equal. Capital that is invested in rigged financier games funded by the Federal Reserve (for example, carry trades and high-frequency trading) is entirely different from capital that is placed at risk in a start-up company.

Capital invested in building a house is quite different from capital invested in pyramiding the mortgage into mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and exotic financial instruments based on the MBS.

Productively invested capital is at risk and generates additional production of goods and services. Financialized capital skims profits from leveraging debt: nothing of any real-world value is produced, it’s just a giant skimming operation based on information asymmetry (or outright fraud and misrepresentation) and leverage.

Fed-funded financialization creates a perverse set of incentives: talent and capital flow to unproductive skimming operations because that’s what generates the outsized profits, effectively starving the real economy of talent and capital.

The Fed makes essentially limitless funds available to banks and financiers at near-zero interest rates. Try borrowing $100,000 from the Fed at 0.1% interest; you can’t. That privilege is reserved for financial predators and parasites.


http://davidstockman...ins-at-the-top/

[Rogerdodger]

More Americans see middle class status slipping...

Edited by Rogerdodger, 02 April 2014 - 07:54 PM.

[stocks]

Fed’s Bubble Finance Is Primary Cause of Massive Wealth Gains At The Top

The Fed makes essentially limitless funds available to banks and financiers at near-zero interest rates. Try borrowing $100,000 from the Fed at 0.1% interest; you can’t. That privilege is reserved for financial predators and parasites.

It's not the 1%, it's the .1%

No Increase in Wealth Inequality for Top 1% Since 1960

For years, I've been making the same embarrassing mistake about U.S. economic inequality. Sorry.

It turns out that wealth inequality isn't about the 1 percent v. the 99 percent at all. It's about the 0.1 percent v. the 99.9 percent (or, really, the 0.01 percent vs. the 99.99 percent, if you like). Long-story-short is that this group, comprised mostly of bankers and CEOs, is riding the stock market to pick up extraordinary investment income. And it's this investment income, rather than ordinary earned income, that's creating this extraordinary wealth gap.

The 0.1 percent isn't the same group of people every year. There's considerable churn at the tippy-top. For example, consider the "Fortunate 400," the IRS's annual list of the 400 richest tax returns in the country. Between 1992 and 2008, 3,672 different taxpayers appeared on the Fortunate 400 list. Just one percent of the Fortunate 400—four households—appeared on the list all 17 years.

Now there's your real 1 percent.


Read more at http://globaleconomi...JgIzqLRbtxw6.99

[stocks]

I have said it many times in these pages: economic growth in the U.S. economy can only occur when the general standard of living for the average American improves. Sadly, each day, we see more and more evidence suggesting the opposite.

People around the world will only begin to question their economic policymakers when they realize living standards are slowly worsening

Two changes in the past 15 years have made bubble formation a constant feature of financial markets around the world. The inefficiencies in capital allocation and income redistribution to finance are the main reason for today's sluggish global economy.

The global financial system has experienced one bubble after another because major central banks have kept monetary policy loose. Prolonged loose monetary policy has made the financial system extraordinary large relative to the real economy. This change forces central banks to respond to negative shocks, like the bursting of a bubble, from the financial system. Such responses make the financial system even bigger. This vicious cycle explains why speculation has become such a powerful force.

Read more at http://globaleconomi...Rjc5Lb1tkwDi.99

[stocks]

Dear Keynesians: Your Sad Devotion to Your Failed Religion Hasn't Conjured Up a Recovery--Here's Why

That any schoolkid could predict eliminating feedback and consequences will lead to a series of disastrously poor choices by speculators and imprudent borrowers doesn't register with the Keynesian Cargo Cult.

The central premise of the Keynesian Cargo Cult is that this mechanism of making it cheap and easy to borrow money will work a kind of magic that can only be manifested by dancing around a fire at night waving dead chickens and chanting "humba-humba." The Keynesian cargo Cult calls this magic "animal spirits."

Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones

Job losses and gains have been skewed. Higher-wage industries — like accounting and legal work — shed 3.6 million positions during the recession and have added only 2.6 million positions during the recovery. But lower-wage industries lost two million jobs, then added 3.8 million.J


http://www.nytimes.c...s...src=me&_r=0