Category Archives: Coming Social Unrest
Let Them Eat Credit
By most counts, the U.S. economy started growing in the middle of last year. For many Americans, though, it does not feel as if the Great Recession has ended—unemployment and underemployment are still alarmingly high, and job growth is weak. … Continue reading
Things could get nasty
PR Push Against Strategic Defaulters Underway (Is There a Debtors’ Prison in Your Future?) – 06/12/2010 – Yves Smith
Howdy, Neighbor!
When asked what advice he would give to residents of Ashtabula County Ohio because of cutbacks in official law enforcement budgets, Judge Alfred Mackey said they should: “arm themselves. Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, … Continue reading
What they knew and when they knew it
“I have to think this train is probably going to leave the station soon and we need to focus our efforts on explaining the story as best we can. There were too many people involved in the deals — too … Continue reading
Debtors’ Revolt?
he big banks have gotten plenty of help with their debts. But what about struggling households and non-financial institutions? Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Marshall Auerback investigates. Once all the TARPs are tidied up and the quarterly profits no longer a revelation, … Continue reading
Ron Paul: The American Cicero
Let’s hope he doesn’t end up the same way: “Could it all be a bad dream, or a nightmare? Is it my imagination, or have we lost our minds? It’s surreal; it’s just not believable. A grand absurdity; a great … Continue reading
Mr Obama, you are no FDR
….the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by … Continue reading
Sic transit America?
Flagging: a US sailor stands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington If a week is a long time in politics, a decade is starting to look like an age in geopolitics. Comparing the America that … Continue reading
Obama’s Big Sellout
Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for … Continue reading
Société Générale tells clients how to prepare for potential ‘global collapse’
In a report entitled “Worst-case debt scenario”, the bank’s asset team said state rescue packages over the last year have merely transferred private liabilities onto sagging sovereign shoulders, creating a fresh set of problems. Overall debt is still far too … Continue reading
The Big Government Boss isn’t going away
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” said Timothy W. Long, the chief bank examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “At the height of the economic boom, to take an aggressive supervisory approach and tell people to stop … Continue reading
Stimulating Failure
The Job Report: Another month, another drop in payrolls. Will it ever occur to our leaders in Washington that what they’re doing isn’t working – and may actually be damaging our economy? News that the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2% … Continue reading
Commercial-Real-Estate Crush: The Next Crisis Not to Be Wasted?
In light of the recent multitude of chances for the population at large to be gently introduced to the shenanigans of our Federal Reserve System, I have hope that the lights may come on for enough people before it is … Continue reading
Rushing to the Exits?
Bottom Line. The Fed is moving toward the exit as they look toward the conclusion of their securities purchases programs. But it is not clear that such a move is justified by their own forecasts or the inflation/wage/employment data. There … Continue reading
The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell You
Unemployment will almost certainly in double-digits next year — and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey, you can bet there’s another either too … Continue reading
Unemployment numbers still point to partial recovery
Conclusion: the labor market is till weak, weaker than it should be at this point in a cyclical recovery. Unless this changes in the fall and winter, a double dip recession is going to be more likely. While the preceding … Continue reading
It’s Unemployment, Stupid!
Pittsburgh protesters demand G20 do more for jobs Forbes “We’re not going to accept a jobless recovery,” said Larry Adams, a postal worker who came from Jersey City, New Jersey, for the protest. …
Just so you know
Announced changes in the regulatory landscape, including for hedge funds, private equity, and derivatives and securitization markets, will contribute to an increase in overall credit costs. The secular trend towards lower nominal interest rates, which has sustained financial intermediation and … Continue reading
Spain: Bleak forecast puts unemployment at 22% in 2010
In Spain: Bleak forecast puts unemployment at 22% in 2010, Edward Harrison relates that the recovery in Spain will be later than elsewhere in Europe because of the extent of deleveraging, and unemployment will continue to rise.
THE KREMLIN’S POWDERKEG
Moscow’s Troubles in the Caucasus The ongoing ethnic and political tensions between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea are becoming a threat to the leadership in Moscow. Although the Kremlin garnered respect as a result of its war with … Continue reading
Income inequality can rise and fall for all sorts of reasons
Income inequality can rise and fall for all sorts of reasons. Twenty-somethings just starting out and retired seventy-somethings both earn a lot less on average than peak-earning fifty-somethings. As the age profile of the population shifts, income inequality figures shift, … Continue reading
The Climate of Fear
Fear itself: “Swine flu is not the only thing we are neurotic wrecks about. Over at the Home Office, ministers warn about the likelihood of an al Qaeda terrorist attack,” says a Daily Mail op-ed on “today’s culture of fear.” … Continue reading
“Increasingly, the determination of when to default is not guided by the moral question: Is this the right thing to do? It is guided by the pragmatic concern: Am I too far underwater on my mortgage?”
Walking Away When You Can Pay By Kelsey VanOverloop Homeowners are turning to the “strategic default” — walking away from a mortgage even when there are funds available to keep paying. “Increasingly, the determination of when to default is not … Continue reading
The Economics and Politics of Race
Sowell and Benedict XVI on Economics and Culture Back in 1983, economist Thomas Sowell wrote The Economics and Politics of Race, an in-depth look at how different ethnic and immigrant groups fared in different countries throughout human history. He noted … Continue reading
The Committee to Defraud the World
To say now that ‘No one knew’ or ‘I was mistaken’ or ‘I was just doing as I was told’ is another in a series of lies and deceptions that have supported one of the greatest frauds in the history … Continue reading →