Five car pile up
Poor Karl Denninger. One of the most respected economic analysts [and if you need proof of that, visit the better bloggers round the sphere, especially the economic bloggers and he is usually in their links somewhere], poor Karl. He is succumbing, as even the lesser amongst us have done, to the temptation to rail against pig-ignorance.
When one has presented the facts and figures and made the argument, backed up at each stage and then someone waltzes in and just says: “Well, I don’t believe all that conspiracy theory stuff,” it’s real hairshirt material.
Poor Karl – I can feel his angst, deeply.
The entire premise of a polite and law-abiding society is that while not every crime can possibly be punished vast, pervasive fraud and robbery will not stand. The government’s job is, if nothing else, to prosecute such wrong-doing and put a stop to it, clawing back what can be recovered so the victims receive whatever compensation is possible and the wrong-doers are punished.
YET THEY HAVE REFUSED.
So is it, under such conditions, REALLY wrong to go take what one needs to avoid outright privation – or worse, starvation?
Does the government understand the risk they are running by willfully refusing to act as the law demands?
To remove people from office, to prosecute wrong-doing, to lock these crooks up?
If the people cannot find justice within the government’s apparatus, are they to sit quietly and ask “Please Sir, may I have another (beating, rape, robbery, take your pick)?”
Or should we expect that at some point – perhaps not now, but perhaps not far down the road either, the people will have had enough. They will rise and take care of these matters in their own way – and there won’t be much in the way of a “fair trial.” I’ve yet to see boiled rope or guillotine blade futures listed by the CME, but is this sort of redress for grievances really that far in our future?
There are times I wonder.
Perhaps the reason we have not seen a massive uprising – and the institution of “citizen trials” – is that the American People simply don’t get it. They never learned compound interest and earnings in school, as it is simply not taught. Tout TV never talks about the total systemic debt load and how it has grown (as I posted in The Ticker a few days ago) .vs. GDP. The truth about The Fed basically paying people to borrow (we have real negative interest rates right now!) as a means of trying to intentionally inflate bubbles is never discussed.
Intentional? Probably.
For how long will The People remain in the dark?
Are they ignorant – or stupid?
Sigh. Yes Karl, this is the nature of representative government – they fool the people for most of the time, people who have no understanding of politics and yet who nonetheless have the vote and then these good people turn up on polling day and vote these bozos right back in. It’s enough to make one seek a South Pacific island somewhere and spend the rest of one’s life with an island girl.
Yesterday I was cycling up the danger hill and a car I could vaguely see behind me was acting strangely so I let her go past instead of hogging the gap. No sooner had she passed me than she jammed her brakes on, sending me careering round on the ice, trying to maintain traction and the dozen or so cars behind her who had just accelerated to get up the hill all had to brake as well and I was almost in the middle of a five car pile-up.
Why had she done that? On the way up a hill?
It was to let someone parked out. The guy had his indicator on, he was waiting and realized that he’d need to wait until the twelve cars had passed, he was relaxed and yet now he was highly embarrassed, pulled onto the road quicky and disappeared. I rode up beside the car and looked at her face through the window.
She was calm, contented, beaming that she had spread a little Christmas joy by letting a poor motorist onto the highway. She was a do-gooder. We live in a Labour area. I put two and two together, vis-a-vis next March and didn’t like the vision. I just looked at this woman, she looked back, saw that my face did not bear the visage of fuzzy Christmas warmth and she probably interpreted the cacophany of horns behind her as acclamation for her selfless act.
She was quite puzzled by my manner and even more puzzled that I just shook my head and rode on. The one who copped a mouthful was not her, in her happy oblivion but my mate whom I was on the last stage of riding to and he was amused.
Yeah, yeah.
I’m going to relax now. I’m going to put some soothing music on and forget politics, forget my new love, Tzipi Livni and all the troubles of the world and I’m going to make myself a coffee and then go round and visit my blogfriends, snug in this warm flat and with the sheer joy of Christmas coursing through my veins.
Why do men my age have strokes? Why are people who cause five car pile-ups so happy? Why did my teacher when I was in primary school tell my mum that I ask too many questions? Why did my mate in Russia turn to me and tell me that the first thing to learn in Russia is never to ask why.
Why?
Filed under: Politics & economics, Society & human issues
I presume the picture at the head of your post is that of the lady driver?
ht Jesse.
Planned from the beginning, but leading to where?
Various authorities disagree in detail over who, exactly, is buying US debt, – that is agency, and T bills.
But the bottom line is that the data seems to indicate that the foreign sector traditional buyers (at least for the past 20 years or so) of US sovereign debt are walking away from the market as they had said they would do, and are moving their reserves into other instruments.
This may not be such a great problem if the US trade balance continues to narrow, but it certainly is not healthy to see the Fed and the US household sector as the major markets for US sovereign debt.
If 2010 is not a year of recovery for the average American, the ability of the Treasury and Fannie/Freddie to keep expanding their debt offerings is going to become quickly constrained. How can Joe Sixpack keep saving and buying Treasuries, and at the same time consume at a rate sufficient to grow GDP? – - all on a stagnant median wage and a contracting housing market? Think the rest of the world is suddenly going to grow a taste for US exports? Will the US retreat into isolationism and trade barriers? That might not be Price Index friendly.
The US is marshaling its ratings agencies and multinationals to cast doubt on the European union, their currency, and their solvency, and threaten to take them down first to maintain an equilibrium of failures. The Greek economy represents approx 2.5% of the Euro GDP. If Greece leaves Europe, the Euro would be stronger. There are other nations in the EU suffering. Ireland is administering the medicine. Some others are still in denial.
In the US, 40 states are effectively bankrupt.
The US is much closer to the point of a serious debt crisis than one might imagine from what is being put out by most US based financial analysts. There is a nasty convergence of constraints bearing down on the Fed and the Treasury that look to push the ability to market dollar debt to the breaking point. If a couple of big States go under next year, the dominoes may start falling very quickly.
I see the problem, but I have to confess that I do not yet see how the Bernanke Fed intends to dodge this collision. And I know that they must see this as well, and have a game plan. Could counting on an exogenous event that would provoke an artificial demand and neo-isolationism (something like a regional war, or at least a trade war) be called a plan? Can they possibly be in denial, and just looting the capital before the Empire falls? It is hard to see how the resolution of this will unfold just yet, but I am pretty sure that many of the simple scenarios that people are laying out so nicely with such fine rhetoric are more fantasy than probable outcomes. This is going to knock our socks off default-wise.
If you think that this crisis will be deflationary, then you might be a bit surprised to see what happens if and when a US sovereign debt offering fails in the market. It will not be pretty. And it will not be dollar friendly in the longer term. But who can say what will happen, when there are so many possibilities.
The market may likely reveal to us what is coming, if we are observant, and lucky, and have the willingness to listen to what we may not wish to hear.
Do not underestimate the power of Wall Street/Washington to engineer global movements/events to their advantage. To take down a few minor nations, to start the dominoes, is well practiced, and easy.
Russian orbital states, anyone? Pakistan? Turkey?
Wherever, and to whom, the bought media will play a symphony, and our fellow countymen will give their blood.
And the criminals still prosper. Many socialists/communists now occupy pivotal positions in global structures. The climate movement is laid bare but proceeds.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/12/us-bull-market-in-smoke-mirrors-and.html
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/12/myth-of-quantitative-easing.html
@WitteringsfromWitney – you need to hover over the picture to see the title of it
@James – Well I could tell you about the two vans that careered round the corner of my road first thing yesterday morning causing me to do an emergency maneuver and break. Both male drivers driving too fast for the road conditions which was like a sheet of ice. Breaking on ice is not good especially when it is a narrow estate road with lots of cars parked in it!!! What a good job I was awake… The first one did have the decency to acknowledge he had been a bit out of order though!
As to the Whys, I don’t know and there were far too many of them. But who am I to complain when I do exactly the same thing
There’s yet another, almighty bubble being intentionally built – carbon credits.
http://bit.ly/4ue71c
Like the derivatives bubble, it is based on something that is intrinsically worthless and worse, is coming about via international treaty. Why is this worse? Because whereas a president can commit to a course of action which can be undone by his successor (“no parliament may bind its successor), international treaties cannot be undone.
It’s amazing how many drivers try to climb slippery gradients in 1st gear.
What a range of wisdom here.