http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055630/Flying-proudly-birthplace-Libyas-revolution-flag-Al-Qaeda.html

Good Job Obama----Flying proudly over the birthplace of Libya's revolution, the flag of Al Qaeda

 

 

 

 

 

Who's Fault is it big Government, or Big Wall Street that our economy is in a depression ???

http://dailycapitalist.com/2011/10/30/peter-schiff-vs-cornel-west-video/


 Who's Fault is it big Government, or Big Wall Street that our economy is in a depression ???

    



     

Who would lie about the Economy ??? The Government ???

http://dailycapitalist.com/2011/10/30/q3-gdp-is-a-head-fake/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyCapitalist+%28The+Daily+Capitalist%29


 Who would lie about the Economy ??? The Government ???

Lastly these numbers are what are called “real”, or inflation-adjusted numbers. This gives rise to the question of what is the actual rate of price inflation. They don’t use the CPI ratio put out by the Census Bureau. They use what is called a “chained” price deflator from the GDP report which means they take prices as they were in 2005 and figure how much they have gone up since then. Then they adjust the gross spending numbers by this (“deflator”). This is good for the government because it is lower than what we believe to be the actual price inflation rate and makes GDP look better than it really is. Let’s face it, 2005 isn’t very long ago and if you go back farther in time this inflation indicator would make GDP look worse. Why not 1995 or 1985 or 1975?
Also, they keep changing their calculation methodologies. My preferred price inflation source is Shadowstats which uses methodologies the government used in 1990 or from 1980. Their 1980 chart is showing price inflation at about 12%. The BEA (which puts out the GDP report) is using a 2.5% rate of price inflation. In other words, if you adjusted current GDP by the 1980 deflator GDP would be in the negative. And, if that were the case, which I believe it is, we would be seeing flat to declining growth and high unemployment, which we are.

The Feds have finally found a solution for the Malaise ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBHAkNepaRA&feature=feedu

The Feds have finally found a solution for the Malaise ....
 

     

 

Did China or Jihadists try to bankrupt America? Pentagon report reveals financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361898/Pentagon-reveal-financial-terrorists-triggered-economic-crash.html#ixzz1cHCUR592

Did China or Jihadists try to bankrupt America? Pentagon report reveals financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361898/Pentagon-reveal-financial-terrorists-triggered-economic-crash.html#ixzz1cHCUR592 

Not very surprising  

 

EU dilemma explained succinctly ...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/xtranormal-explains-european-non-bailout-best-cartoon

     

Nothing funnier at midnite Saturdaynite while the wife is asleep then listening and watching Weird Al on Youtube

http://youtu.be/qpMvS1Q1sos

Nothing funnier at midnite Saturdaynite while the Wife is asleep then listening and watching Weird Al on Youtube    

     

White and Nerdy ........ ;-)

http://youtu.be/N9qYF9DZPdw

 White and Nerdy    ........     ;-)
 

         

 

  

Levity ;-) a Bad Lip Reading of Barack Obama video lol NSFW

Levity ;-)  a Bad Lip Reading of Barack Obama video lol 

http://youtu.be/ehYoIKTsiV0 

         

Neat read from Zero Hedge as usual...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/things-make-you-go-hmmm-such-empty-box-filled-promises-money-and-europes-soup-nazi#comment-1825

Neat read from Zero Hedge as usual...

 Make sure to read all the things that make you go Hmmmmm...
.

Ron Paul Sounds like the only sane voice out there unless you like seeing smoke blowing...

    http://youtu.be/hCG1Q_8kCxE


   

Good Job Mrs Merkel, really just kick the can down the road alittle harder next time you do the final fix for EU and sell you Citizens down the river. Sorry but you do gooders never do (any real good)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/8857518/Why-the-latest-eurozone-bail-out-is-destined-to-fail-within-weeks.html

 Good Job Mrs Merkel, really just kick the can down the road alittle harder next time you do the final fix for EU and sell you Citizens down the river. Sorry but you do gooders never do (any real good)

 

Big Brother is listening and is taking more control all the time....Coming on November 9,2011-- the The President will take over all broadcast, to put out His message....

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011102814831/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/big-brother-is-listening-to-phone-calls-and-reading-text-messages.html?utm

 Big Brother is listening and is taking more control all the time....Coming on November 9,2011-- the The President will take over all broadcast, to put out His message....

 

Eurozone bail-out: holes emerge in the 'grand solution’ to solve EU debt crisis

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8854382/Eurozone-bail-out-holes-emerge-in-the-grand-solution-to-solve-EU-debt-crisis.html

 

 Eurozone bail-out: holes emerge in the 'grand solution’ to solve EU debt crisis

 

 Hours after an all-night summit of euro governments ended, flaws began to emerge in a package that was billed as a “grand and comprehensive” solution to the European debt crisis.

The concerns were led by Germany’s powerful central bank, which expressed fears that a plan to leverage a €440 billion eurozone rescue fund to amass a “fire power” of €1 trillion, or £880 billion, resembled the risky finance methods that triggered the crisis in 2008.

EU leaders are expected to sanction the establishment of a so-called special purpose investment vehicle, or SPIV, to be set up in the coming weeks. It is aimed at attracting investment from countries such as China and Brazil.

Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank and a member of the European Central Bank, sounded the alarm over the plan to “leverage” the fund by a factor of four to five times without putting any new money into the pot.

He warned that the scheme could be hit by market turbulence with taxpayers left holding the bill for risky investments in Italian and Spanish bonds.

RELATED ARTICLES

• David Cameron fails to win assurances on eurobloc 
  28 Oct 2011
• George Osborne to block IMF cash for eurozone bail-out 
  27 Oct 2011
• Global markets soar on EU debt deal 
  27 Oct 2011
• Sarkozy: 'Error to let Greece into eurozone' 
  27 Oct 2011
• US allays recession fears with stronger growth 
  27 Oct 2011
• Hillary Clinton: Greek economic sacrifices are painful but necessary 
  27 Oct 2011

“It is tied to higher risks of losses and to increased sharing of risks,” said Mr Weidmann. “The way they are constructed, the leveraging instruments are not too different from those which were partly responsible for creating the crisis, because they concealed risks.”

Bill Gross, the founder of Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund, said the eurozone rescue would be a temporary fix for markets and that the fund could pose a high-risk for investors.

“No bazooka but should stabilize markets for now,” he messaged on the Twitter site yesterday. “Watch out if the plan is a giant SIV (structured investment vehicle) with levered risk.”

The plan to increase the European Financial and Stability Facility to €1  trillion on paper was attacked by economists as not enough to “stave off” worsening debt problems in Italy and Spain.

In a survey of economists, 26 of 48 thought the firepower was not enough. A plan for a €2 trillion fund was shelved after German and French opposition.

Doubts also emerged over the lack of detail on a proposal to let Greece help pay its rapidly mounting debt burden by negotiating a voluntary “haircut” that would allow it to write off about half of its debts.

Under the deal, private sector banks agreed to start negotiations on a nominal 50 per cent cut in bond investments to reduce Greece’s debt burden by €100  billion, cutting its debts to 120 per cent of GDP by 2020, from 160 per cent now.

At the same time, the eurozone will offer “credit enhancements” or sweeteners to the private sector of €30 billion.

Senior EU officials were left admitting that there was no agreement on how the deal would translate into a reduction in the Greek debt.

Greek opposition parties to the Left and Right united to condemn the eurozone deal amid mounting social conflict.

Antonis Samaras, the conservative opposition leader, said: “We are not closer to the solution but are faced with nine years of collapse and poverty.”

Dimitris Papadimoulis, a Left-wing MP, said new EU powers in the agreement to impose austerity measures on Greece had a conflict of interest. “Those who monitor us do not have our interests in mind,” he said. “Their priority is that we pay back our loans.”

Video of Herman Cain and Ron Paul on who knew the Housing bubble was coming......

http://youtu.be/u4DTwqbi0-E

Video of  Herman Cain and Ron Paul on who knew the Housing bubble was coming.......

   

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424053111903927204576574433454435452-lMyQjAxMTAxMDIwODEyNDgyWj.html?mod=wsj_share_email

  Subject: The Mortgage Crisis: Some Inside Views - WSJ 10/27/11

------
The Mortgage Crisis: Some Inside Views

OCTOBER 27, 2011

By CHARLES W. CALOMIRIS

Emails show that risk managers at Freddie Mac warned about lower underwriting
standards—in vain, and with lessons for today.

Occupy Wall Street is denouncing banks and Wall Street for "selling toxic
mortgages" while "screwing investors and homeowners." And the federal
government recently announced it will be suing mortgage originators whose
low-quality underwriting standards produced ballooning losses for Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac.

Have they fingered the right culprits?

There is no doubt that reductions in mortgage-underwriting standards were at
the heart of the subprime crisis, and Fannie and Freddie's losses reflect
those declining standards. Yet the decline in underwriting standards was
largely a response to mandates, beginning in the Clinton administration, that
required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to steadily increase their mortgages or
mortgage-backed securities that targeted low-income or minority borrowers and
"underserved" locations.

The turning point was the spring and summer of 2004. Fannie and Freddie had
kept their exposures low to loans made with little or no documentation
(no-doc and low-doc loans), owing to their internal risk-management
guidelines that limited such lending. In early 2004, however, senior
management realized that the only way to meet the political mandates was to
massively cut underwriting standards.

The risk managers complained, especially at Freddie Mac, as their emails to
senior management show. They refused to endorse the move to no-docs and
battled unsuccessfully against the reduced underwriting standards from April
to September 2004.

Here are some highlights:
On April 1, 2004, Freddie Mac risk manager David Andrukonis wrote to Tracy
Mooney, a vice president, that "while you, Don [Bisenius, a senior vice
president] and I will make the case for sound credit, it's not the theme
coming from the top of the company and inevitably people down the line play
follow the leader."

Risk managers had already experimented with lower lending standards and knew
the dangers. In another email that day, Mr. Bisenius wrote to Michael May
(another senior vice president), "we did no-doc lending before, took
inordinate losses and generated significant fraud cases. I'm not sure what
makes us think we're so much smarter this time around."

On April 5, Mr. Andrukonis wrote to Chief Operating Officer Paul Peterson,
"In 1990 we called this product 'dangerous' and eliminated it from the
marketplace." He also argued that housing prices were already high and
unlikely to rise further: "We are less likely to get the house price
appreciation we've had in the past 10 years to bail this program out if
there's a hole in it."

Donna Cogswell, a colleague of Mr. Andrukonis, warned that Fannie and
Freddie's decisions to debase underwriting standards would have widespread
ramifications for the mortgage market. In a Sept. 7 email to Freddie Mac CEO
Dick Syron and others, she specifically described the ramifications of
Freddie Mac's continuing participation in the market as effectively "mak[ing]
a market" in no-doc mortgages.

Ms. Cogswell's Sept. 4 email to Mr. Syron and others also anticipated the
potential human costs of the mortgage crisis. She tried to sway management by
appealing to their decency: "[W]hat better way to highlight our sense of
mission than to walk away from profitable business because it hurts the
borrowers we are trying to serve?"
Politics—not shortsightedness or incompetent risk managers—drove Freddie
Mac to eliminate its previous limits on no-doc lending. Commenting on what
others referred to as the "push to do more affordable [lending] business,"
Senior Vice President Robert Tsien wrote to Dick Syron on July 14, 2004:
"Tipping the scale in favor of no cap [on no-doc lending] at this time was
the pragmatic consideration that, under the current circumstances, a cap
would be interpreted by external critics as additional proof we are not
really committed to affordable lending."

Sensing that his warnings were being ignored, Mr. Andrukonis wrote to Michael
May on Sept. 8: "At last week's risk management meeting I mentioned that I
had reached my own conclusion on this product from a reputation risk
perspective. I said that I thought you and or Bob Tsien had the
responsibility to bring the business recommendation to Dick [Syron], who was
going to make the decision. . . . What I want Dick to know is that he can
approve of us doing these loans, but it will be against my recommendation."

The decision by Fannie and Freddie to embrace no-doc lending in 2004 opened
the floodgates of bad credit. In 2003, for example, total subprime and Alt-A
mortgage originations were $395 billion. In 2004, they rose to $715 billion.
By 2006, they were more than $1 trillion.

In a painstaking forensic analysis of the sources of increased mortgage risk
during the 2000s, "The Failure of Models that Predict Failure," Uday Rajan of
the University of Michigan, Amit Seru of the University of Chicago and
Vikrant Vig of London Business School show that more than half of the
mortgage losses that occurred in excess of the rosy forecasts of expected
loss at the time of mortgage origination reflected the predictable
consequences of low-doc and no-doc lending. In other words, if the
mortgage-underwriting standards at Fannie and Freddie circa 2003 had remained
in place, nothing like the magnitude of the subprime crisis would have
occurred.

Taxpayer losses at Fannie and Freddie alone may exceed $300 billion. The
costs of the financial collapse and recession brought on by the mortgage bust
are immeasurably higher. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has
perpetuated the low underwriting standards that gave us the crisis and
encouraged the postponement of foreclosures by lending support to various
states' efforts to sue originators for robo-signing violations.

Now they are trying to deflect blame from Fannie and Freddie by suing the
originators who fulfilled the politically motivated demands of the
government-sponsored agencies that drove the mortgage crisis. If successful,
all of those efforts will further postpone the ability of banks to grow the
supply of credit, and they will sow the seeds of the next mortgage bust.

Mr. Calomiris is a professor of finance at the Columbia Business School and a
research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Hey Wall Street how long can the Hopium (Hope and Change) last ??? Can Central Banks and Central Planners can defy Economic Law ???

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/621f81b2-0184-11e1-8e59-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1c8iiuYUb

 Hey Wall Street how long can the Hopium (Hope and Change) last ??? Can Central Banks and Central Planners can defy Economic Law ???
 

Italy’s borrowing costs have climbed to euro-era highs just a day after European leaders agreed on a new plan to reverse the region’s spiralling debt crisis, a worrying sign they have failed to regain the confidence of key financial markets.

As striking Italian civil servants massed in central Rome to protest against possible forced redundancies, Italy was forced to pay a record 6.06 per cent at an auction of its benchmark 10-year bonds, up from 5.86 per cent a month ago, despite intervention by the European Central Bank on the open market.

More

ON THIS STORY

• Analysis Euphoria fades in the cold light of day
• Editorial Liaisons plus dangéreuses
• Japan urges more action on euro crisis
• Italy’s borrowing costs soar at debt sale
• EFSF head optimistic of China’s support

The move comes as European officials have turned to China and Japan for possible funding of the eurozone’s bail-out fund. In Tokyo, Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, told the Financial Times he would like to see “even greater efforts” in Europe to “ease crisis worries by creating a stronger and more detailed approach”.

The world’s third-largest economy remained concerned about possible contagion. “This fire is not on the other side of the river,” Mr Noda said. “Currently, the most important thing is to ensure it does not spread to Asia or the global economy.”

Markets increasingly see Italy as the decisive country for how the eurozone debt crisis plays out.

The Darkness cometh and it is in the hearts of those in Occupy wall street type who hate America and Israel

The Darkness cometh and it is in the hearts of those in Occupy wall street type who hate America and Israel

   

Inflation On the Way

 http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/data-suggests-inflation-on-the-way/

 

  The good news is that the economy grew at a modest 2.5 percent in the last quarter. The bad news is that rapid economic growth in 2012 or 2013 could also prompt bank executives to inadvertently jump-start inflation.
The executives are holding back roughly $1 trillion in funds provided in 2009 by government officials to buy over-valued mortgages from banks and Wall Street firms.
The bank executives are now holding that cash because they were traumatized by the near-meltdown of the banking system in 2008.
But if their confidence grows, they could loan out hundreds of billions of dollars and spur inflation, says Steve Horwitz, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.
There’s some evidence that inflation is already underway, he said.
New data shows a sharp jump in prices at the base of the economy, he said. For example, consumer prices rose 3.9 percent over the last year, but the price of “crude goods” grew 21 percent.
Crude goods are the raw materials of production, and their increased prices may gradually pass through factories, distribution centers and shops until they bump up consumer prices in future months. The 21 percent growth is perhaps being caused by companies’ use of banks’ plentiful funds to bid up prices, he said.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/27/data-suggests-inflation-on-the-way/#ixzz1c5q545TW

The Faces of America usurpation....Obama's plan to Win end run around Congress and Occupy Wall Street.....

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/chicago-occupier-outside-rahm-emanuels-office-revolution-will-require-collapsing-american-gov/

   



  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/michael-moore-occupy-movements-obamas-only-hope-for-reelection/

   

The Revolution continues and Obama will just outflank both sides of Congress even Dems to get his Way like he has done with the truimphs in Middle East...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67043.html

 The Revolution continues and Obama will just outflank both sides of Congress even Dems to get his Way like he has done  with the triumphs in the Middle East...

WoW Wall Street must be desperate for more Hopium.....

http://dailycapitalist.com/2011/10/27/quote-of-the-day/

 WoW Wall Street must be desperate for more Hopium.....

 Senior EU officials were left admitting that there was no agreement on how the deal would translate into a reduction in the Greek debt.

Even China know where this is all headed..

http://www.sovereignman.com/

The -critical- importance of international diversification

 Even China know where this is all headed..

Pro-choice Death Camp,,,Warning Strong Language and graphic material, surely any who would condone such are beyond the pale..

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/27/us-crime-abortion-pennsylvania-idUSTRE79Q7GK20111027


Pro-choice Death Camp,,,Warning Strong Language and graphic material, surely any who would condone such are beyond the pale...Where can a child hide ,who is not safe in his or her mother's womb...

http://dailycapitalist.com/2011/10/26/durable-goods-continue-negative-trend/


 More good and bad news on the economy...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45058763

 Oh yes the economy is growing now, but don't look under the covers , don't look to closely at the figures or you will be disappointed...THEY keep telling us we turned the corner just like FDR did in the 30's and 40's during the long Depression....

Gimme ,Gimme, Gimme , the Occupy Wall Street or Greece or Italy or whatever city or State.

http://bigpeace.com/pschweizer/2011/10/27/the-euro-financial-crisis-and-occupy-wall-street-gimme-gimme-gimme/


 Gimme ,Gimme, Gimme , the Occupy Wall Street or Greece or Italy or whatever city or State the Unwilling to go to work for Themselves and support themselves crowd is demand money from others in World Wide Extortion...

When i first saw this Post i thought Good we are finally reducing our troops in Germany, but no

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20111026-38453.html

 When i first saw this Post i thought Good we are finally reducing our troops in Germany, but no the Germans are reducing their troops and bases in their own country , while we continue to have all our troops there protecting them..

Hopium (hope and change) just isn't selling like it used to so people are pulling out of the US stock market,In the week ended October 19, yet another $3.5 billion in funds was redeemed from domestic equity mutual funds, with all of it and then some once again rotating into fixed income

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/relentless-equity-outflows-continue-ytd-mutual-funds-redemptions-surpass-2010-total-despite-bro

 Hopium (hope and change) just isn't selling like it used to so people are pulling out of the US stock market,In the week ended October 19, yet another $3.5 billion in funds was redeemed from domestic equity mutual funds, with all of it and then some once again rotating into fixed income

So EU fixed 20% of it's problem and calling it fixed...

http://www.cityam.com/forum/the-latest-plan-rescue-the-eurozone-flawed-it-sets-the-scene-another-crisis

 So EU fixed 20% of it's problem and calling it fixed...

 The irony is that many of the same leaders just agreed to pointless regulation of credit default swaps (a valid form of default insurance), which is likely to decrease liquidity in sovereign debt markets, increase borrowing costs for some countries and hamper risk management. This hypocrisy is sadly, and expectedly, lost on Eurozone leaders, who seem intent on taking with one hand and giving with the other – fiddling while the Eurozone burns.

The thrust of the plan is that €440bn worth of EFSF funds would be used to offer a guarantee of 20 per cent on new, mainly Italian and Spanish sovereign debt, therefore leveraging the coverage of the fund five times. Let’s put aside the legal issues relating to the Eurozone’s no-bailout clause and the recent German Constitutional Court ruling for a minute and focus on the economics – which just don’t add up.

First off, Spain and Italy represent 30 per cent of the EFSF guarantees. As a result, any EFSF insurance would prove ineffective, since these countries would be partly guaranteeing themselves through their membership of the fund and unable to make good on these guarantees if under threat of default – the exact moment when the guarantees would need to be called upon. Both countries could step out of their EFSF commitments (as bailed out countries already have) but this would reduce the size of the fund significantly.

This leads to a second problem – there isn’t that much money to be leveraged, even if the EFSF’s triple-A rating is abandoned in an attempt to access the full €780bn in guarantees underpinning it (which are currently needed to ensure €440bn effective lending capacity). After the second Greek bailout, around €115bn would be committed from the EFSF to bailout programmes in the Eurozone periphery. Add to this the need for a recapitalisation of European banks, which could cost the EFSF up to €200bn (as suggested by the IMF). Lastly, take into account that the guarantees of Italy and Spain along with Greece, Ireland and Portugal have to be discounted. This leaves only around €175bn to be leveraged, not exactly significant considering that Italian and Spanish funding needs amount to around €1.7 trillion over the next few years.

Thirdly, this plan offers little incentive to investors as the likely scenarios are ones of extremes – there will either be no default with no losses or significant losses under a significant default. But 20 per cent insurance falls somewhere in the middle of the two, which is rather like insuring only part of your house – and therefore unlikely to inspire much confidence. Furthermore, assuming that other countries would be able to fulfil their guarantees during a Spanish or Italian default is unrealistic, particularly given the contagion experienced so far throughout the crisis and the already fragile state of some government finances in the core of the Eurozone.

Additionally, since it looks likely only to apply to new issues of debt rather than the existing stock, it could at best only help Italy and Spain with their liquidity problems, but will do nothing to solve the underlying solvency problems in other Eurozone countries. A proposal that does not tackle the problem of contagion or existing debt levels cannot be seen as a solution. It could also encourage fiscal profligacy in those states which receive some insurance – something which the Eurozone can ill afford more of.

Even if this proposal were viable, the knock-on effects of its implementation would be undesirable. It would create a two-tiered bond market, since a large amount of new debt will involve some insurance (credit enhancement) with the aim of making it “safer”. This would introduce huge uncertainty into secondary markets, making it more difficult to price sovereign risks in the Eurozone – most would agree this is the opposite of what is needed.

Take these issues as a whole and a disturbing picture emerges, one that conjures images of the excessive leverage, unfunded liabilities and misleading credit enhancements that helped fuel the financial crisis. Putting these at the heart of the Eurozone sets the scene for another crisis. Moving forward with a restructuring of Greece and Portugal, a full bank recapitalisation and reforms to restore competitiveness across the Eurozone remains the only feasible short-term solution to this crisis. However, none of the options on offer, least of all this insurance plan, can tackle the underlying structural flaws in the Eurozone.

Acorn and Unions behind New York City Occupy Wall Street...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/26/exclusive-acorn-playing-behind-scenes-role-in-occupy-movement/

 Acorn and Unions behind New York City Occupy Wall Street...

 Sources said NYCC has hired about 100 former ACORN-affiliated staff members from other cities – paying some of them $100 a day - to attend and support Occupy Wall Street. Dozens of New York homeless people recruited from shelters are also being paid to support the protests, at the rate of $10 an hour, the sources said.

At least some of those hired are being used as door-to-door canvassers to collect money that’s used to support the protests.

Sources said cash donations collected by NYCC on behalf of some unions and various causes are being pooled and spent on Occupy Wall Street. The money is used to buy supplies, pay staff and cover travel expenses for the ex-ACORN members brought to New York for the protests.

In one such case, sources said, NYCC staff members collected cash donations for what they were told was a United Federation of Teachers fundraising drive, but the money was diverted to the protests.

Sources who participated in the teachers union campaign said NYCC supervisors gave them the addresses of union members and told them to go knock on their doors and ask for contributions—and did not mention that the money would go toward Occupy Wall Street expenses. One source said the campaign raked in about $5,000.

Current staff members at NYCC told FoxNews.com the union fundraising drive was called off abruptly last week, and they were told NYCC should not have been raising money for the union at all.

Sources said staff members also collected door-to-door for NYCC’s PCB campaign — which aims to test schools for deadly toxins —but then pooled that money together with cash raised for the teachers union and other campaigns to fund Occupy Wall Street.

“We go to Freeport, Central Islip, Park Slope, everywhere, and we say we’re collecting money for PCBs testing in schools. But the money isn’t going to the campaign," one source said. 

"It’s going to Occupy Wall Street, and we’re not using that money to get schools tested for deadly chemicals or to make their kids safer. It’s just going to the protests, and that’s just so terrible.” 

A spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers told FoxNews.com, "The UFT is not involved in any NYCC fundraising on the PCB issue.”

Multiple sources said NYCC is also using cash donations through canvassing efforts in New York’s Harlem and Washington Heights neighborhoods for union-backed campaigns to fund the Wall Street protests.

“All the money collected from canvasses is pooled together back at the office, and everything we’ve been working on for the last year is going to the protests, against big banks and to pay people’s salaries—and those people on salary are, of course, being paid to go to the protests every day,” one NYCC staff member told FoxNews.com. 

Those who contribute don't know the money is going to fund the protests, the source said. 

“They give contributions because we say if they do we can fix things - whatever specific problem they’re having in their area, housing, schools, whatever ... then we spend the contributions paying staff to be at the protests all day, every day. That’s where these contributions - the community’s money – is going,” the source said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/26/exclusive-acorn-playing-behind-scenes-role-in-occupy-movement/#ixzz1bucDsBYq

WTF (Winning The Future) Germany one Parliament vote at a time , So the Germans (who have saved ) are going to bail out the Greeks (who have spent ) , is that right ????

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/germany-approves-bailout-fund-for-eurozone/

 WTF (Winning The Future) Germany one Parliament vote at a time , So the Germans (who have saved ) are going to bail out the Greeks (who have spent ) , is that right ????

GERMANY APPROVES BAILOUT FUND FOR EUROZONE

Boldness of Socialist toward global extortion is beyond blatant now as any good bully would be proud of how Canada-based Adbusters

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45019789

 Boldness of Socialist toward global extortion is beyond blatant now as any good bully would be proud of how
Canada-based Adbusters wants the Occupy Wall Street protest movement against economic inequality to take to the streets to call for a 1 percent tax on such deals ahead of a Nov. 3-4 summit of the G20 leading economies in France.

Group to Call for 'Robin Hood Tax' at Protests Saturday 

"Let's send them a clear message: We want you to slow down some of that $1.3 trillion easy money that's sloshing around the global casino each day—enough cash to fund every social program and environmental initiative in the world," the activist group said on its website,www.adbusters.org.

It ain't gettin any better..now Brasil turns down the E.U. for loans along with many other countries..

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/brazil-refuses-buy-european-bonds-dashing-hopes-bric-based-european-rescue

 It ain't gettin any better..now Brasil turns down the E.U. for loans along with many other countries..

 Not a good sign , Brasil seems to be ahead of the game as far as having our oil rigs (offshore) and our money to finance them , oh yea and the friend of every Socialist, George Soros has been alleged to have drifted down that way along with all the oil platforms ( not allowed to drill around here..)

Fears euro summit could miss final deal

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0f21a590-ff03-11e0-9b2f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1bqbFfYJ5

 

 

Fears euro summit could miss final deal hmmm the Fat Lady

 

is starting to warmup the vocal chords..Euro is already hit the iceberg and has noticed that there aren't enough life boats..

:-) Remember Who We Are

http://youtu.be/esT34yY9QpI




     

I am America....

   

Winners And Losers: The New Economy or how the top 1% lost big time..

Winners And Losers: The New Economy

Submitted by Econophile on 10/25/2011 01:42 -0400

• Bill Gross
 
• ETC
 
• Federal Reserve
 
• Financial Derivatives
 
• John Paulson
 
• Main Street
 
• Money Supply
 
• new economy
 
• PIMCO
 
• Volatility
• Wall Street Journal

This article originally appeared in the Daily Capitalist.

There was a wonderful article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend on the ultra (über, hyper, 1%) rich. The article ("The Wild Ride of the 1%") discusses the volatility of wealth of the top 1% income earners in America. The author, Robert Frank, reveals that these people's income and wealth have become much more unstable than the wealthy class of the past. He makes an important point about today's economy. I urge you to read the article. If you are not a subscriber, you may find it here.

First look at some of the article's data highlights:

The super-high earners have the biggest crashes. The number of Americans making $1 million or more fell 40% between 2007 and 2009, to 236,883, while their combined incomes fell by nearly 50%—far greater than the less than 2% drop in total incomes of those making $50,000 or less, according to Internal Revenue Service figures.

As of 2009, the richest 20% of Americans showed the largest decline in mean wealth of any other group.

Only 27% of America's 400 top earners have made the list more than one year since 1994, one study shows.

Suddenly, in 1982, the wealthiest broke away from the rest of the economy and formed their own virtual country. Their incomes began soaring higher during good times. The top 1% of earners more than doubled their share of national income, to 20% as of 2008. Looking at another measure, the richest 1% increased their share of wealth from just over 20% to more than 33%.

Between 1947 and 1982, the beta of the top 1% was a modest 0.72, meaning that their incomes moved relatively in line with the rest of America. Between 1982 and 2007, their beta soared more than three-fold. ["Beta" is an investment term that tries to measure market risk of a stock in terms of volatility.]

Interviews with more than 100 people with net worths (or former net worths) of $10 million or more, and a wave of new studies on the rich, suggest a different cause: the "financialization" of wealth. Simply put, more wealth today is tied to the stock market than to broader economic growth. A larger share of today's rich make their fortunes from stock-based pay, shares in publicly traded companies, selling a business or working in finance.

The household debt of the top 1% surged more than three-fold between 1989 and 2007, to $600 billion, and grew faster than their net worth.

As the wealthy gain a greater share of wealth and income, they account for a growing share of spending, taxes and investments. The top 5% of earners now account for 37% of consumer outlays,according to Moody's Analytics. The top 1% of earners pay 38% of federal income taxes. The richest 1% of Americans own more than half of the country's individually held stocks, according to the Federal Reserve.

Luxury is now the most volatile segment of the consumer economy. 

The spending volatility of the top 10% of earners is now more than 10 times the spending volatility of the bottom 80%, according to one study.

The article illustrates two important concepts of Austrian theory economics:

• The impact of the boom-bust business cycle (Mises); and
• The dynamics of creative destruction (Schumpeter).

The result of these two forces is that we are increasingly being turned into a society of winners and losers as the economy becomes less robust, more volatile, and less dynamic. This has important investment consequences and lessons for the protection of wealth.

The Boom and Bust

 The article's author, Robert Frank, sees wealth volatility as a cause of economic instability. In fact it is a result of Federal Reserve policies that create these boom-bust cycles and destroy real capital.

 Back in 2009, Bill Gross of PIMCO made the observation (in a very depressing post):

We were getting richer by making things [in the two decades after 1956], not paper. Beginning in the 1980s, however, the cult of the markets, which included the development of financial derivatives and the increasing use of leverage, began to dominate. ...

The U.S. and most other G-7 economies have been significantly and artificially influenced by asset price appreciation for decades. Stock and home prices went up – then consumers liquefied and spent the capital gains either by borrowing against them or selling outright. Growth, in other words, was influenced on the upside by leverage, securitization, and the belief that wealth creation was a function of asset appreciation as opposed to the production of goods and services. American and other similarly addicted global citizens long ago learned to focus on markets as opposed to the economic foundation behind them.

For once I would agree with Mr. Gross. His blind spot is that he doesn't understand why all this happened. He justifies the Fed's and Treasury's interventions to prop up asset prices, regardless of the negative consequences of ZIRP, etc. That's why he has made our Crony Capitalist of the Month list.

Perhaps Mr. Gross should look at money supply. It is not a coincidence that monetary growth since the 1980s has been rather exponential—this chart measures the Fed's broadest measure of money stock:

What Mr. Gross and Mr. Frank and many others don't see is that it is the creation of fiat money that destroys wealth and misdirects the investment of capital into less productive assets.  That is, monetary inflation destroys capital (wealth). The reason why the production of goods and services do not bear higher yields than financial assets is that the production of goods and services suffers from a lack of real capital. Remember that real capitalcomes only from the saved profits of production and from the savings of workers from wages earned in production.

You obviously cannot print wealth, but if you try that fiat money distorts the entire economy by directing investment to things which appear to appreciate but what is really happening is that the dollar is depreciating. As a result, fiat money and real capital are invested in financial assets because they appear to have greater yields than returns from the production of goods. Prices rise (price inflation) and it creates the inevitable boom which always busts. The fall out is that we are stuck with things people don't want (in the present re/depression it is housing). And we fall for it every time.

This has led to the phenomenon that Messrs. Frank and Gross describe: the financialization of the economy. 

Creative Destruction

If you look at the Forbes 400 richest Americans you will see that the industry that has the most rich people is "investments" (96 people, or 24%). The next category is technology which has 48 people. So investments have generated twice as many billionaires as America's powerful and dynamic technology sector. By the way, manufacturing has only 17 people on the list.

The result of these boom-bust business cycles is not only the financialization of the economy, but a change in the attitude of investors about how money is made. My thesis is that (i) investors go where the money is and (ii) people believe that making money is easy. Wall Street is an example of (i) and Main Street is an example of (ii). 

I've discussed the easy money syndrome before: people see other people making money as a result of the boom phase of the cycle and jump in. It looks easy when your neighbor just refinanced their home and bought a new truck and trailer with a boat on it. If they were left out in the last cycle, they will get into the next one. This, as we have seen, replaced a society of savers with a society of spenders. They were fooled by the cycle and ended up bust or holding on to houses that are underwater. We know how that impacted the economy (Crash, Bust, Depression).

It is (ii) that results in the One Percenters and instability of their wealth. It's not an earth shaking conclusion: investors always go where the money is. But in this case the Fed has caused them to go to the wrong place and when the bust inevitably happens many a fortune is lost, as the above statistics reveal.  

This is the Schumpeterian aspect of capitalism but it is not a result of dynamic, competitive capitalism. Businesses are not wiped because someone invented a better product, but rather fortunes are lost through speculation, which is another way of saying betting.

Look at investor John Paulson. He is No. 17 on the Forbes 400 list at $15.5 billion (the only investors ahead of him are Buffet and Soros). In 2006 he wasn't on the list (he was worth only a measly $300 million in early 2007). How did he get so rich? His fund bet heavily against subprime debt and he personally scored $3.5 billion in 2007. Investors flocked to his funds and in 2008 he was up another 20% betting mostly against subprime. In 2009 he started buying gold and his personal wealth went up 50%. In 2010 he doubled his wealth again (his take-home pay was $4.9 billion, a record for the hedge fund industry). This year his fund is down 30% but his personal wealth is up 25% because of his own investments in gold.

But let's be clear about the foundation of Mr. Paulson's wealth: he bets. Granted he made mostly smart bets and he is to be congratulated for that but he is no Warren Buffet (my criticism of him aside, Buffet is a great investor). But others made the same bets and turned around and lost it all (see my article on Peloton Partners-also see Nassim Taleb's comment there). 

Financial speculation has always existed throughout history, and usually for the same reasons (fiat money), but financial speculation is now a fixture of our economy as a result of the relentless boom-bust policies of the Federal Reserve. And we now see that these cycles are causing greater economic dislocation each time they occur. This is the valid point of Mr. Frank's article: the new speculative wealth is less stable than early industrial fortunes because it isn't real and when that fact is discovered (bust) it can go away. And it ripples through the economy. Recall his point:

The top 5% of earners now account for 37% of consumer outlays, according to Moody's Analytics. The top 1% of earners pay 38% of federal income taxes. The richest 1% of Americans own more than half of the country's individually held stocks, according to the Federal Reserve.

This is what we have been calling the bifurcated economy, an economy that benefits the wealthiest among us, but hasn't "trickled down" to most of us because real capital isn't being invested in things that would benefit us for the long term.

As long as the Fed pursues these policies which continue to destroy real capital we will be plagued by booms and busts and our economy will be more volatile and less productive. Instead of wealth being distributed widely throughout the economy as capitalism has done historically, we are now becoming an economy of winners and losers.

 *Mr. Frank is coming out with a book on this topic, The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust, to be published Nov. 1 by Crown Business.