Economist Christina Romer serves up dismal news at her farewell luncheon
Economist Christina Romer serves up dismal news at her farewell luncheon
Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her "valedictory" before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last:
She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.
What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare."
Anybody want dessert?
If this is who is running our country, we should be really, really scared.
She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be
The economic collapse will be really bad... possibly ending like the Weimar Republic because the system is designed to fail, utterly. It's only a matter of time before the props are seen for what they are.
The exponential is exponential
She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad
This is easy. The US monetary system is a ponzi scheme and the value is being called upon at a time when we need it but they have stolen.
The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.
Correct and, wow, she's an idiot. Anything short of bringing our monetary in line with our Constitution is inadequate. This means getting rid of the privately owned and operated Federal Reserve and, short of amending the Constitution, returning to the gold standard. I am a fan of amending but it also needs to be a properly designed monetary system where money is value instead of being debt with interest rates. Debt is not money and we currently are treating it like money.
This time it won't be the same.
Corporations were Never People
Can we stop them now? The case just needs to be completely read through by the Supreme Court and all the logic built upon that what people think of as that case can be thrown out.
Oliver Stone’s Wall Street sequel
'Wall Street' sequel is an omen of U.S. collapse
So, Just like Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Oliver Stone has lost focus on the individual: What you can do in your own life to at least try to combat these evil forces. There are two kinds of actions to be taking right now.
- Corrective Actions to change society so it doesn't happen
- Damage Control Actions to minimize your own risk should something happen
The problem isn't capitalism. Capitalism is actually a very fine system. It works wonders when it is actually real. Our system we have today is not capitalism: it's fascism. It's government for and by corporations. banks and large corporations have so much power that they have taken over. They can manipulate markets and governments and thus you and me. So the question is, how many of the problems does Stone touch upon? The banks? monetary policy? constitutionality? capitalism? corporatism? cronie-democracy? the one party system (Republicrats)? fascism?
The Federal Government is way way out of line. They have taken so much liberty when the founders of the nation intended the Federal Government to be extremely limited and have each state govern itself.
The Federal Deficit vs. The Federal Reserve
I'd like to point out the EXTREME conflict of interest that Congress has with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve directly or indirectly is funding a great part of the Federal Deficit authorized by Congress. Thus, until the Federal Deficit is wiped out we are holden to our Providers. Congress "can't" audit the Federal Reserve because they need the Federal Reserve.
Here is the kicker. Congress doesn't need the Federal Reserve for money. They have the Constitutional Power to create it themselves. Switching the system would be too disruptive to the powers that fund the Senators.
So they won't. So sad.
Keiser Report №17: Markets! Finance! Scandal!
We've been at financial war with China for many, many years. No one talks about the Chinese only letting us go through the kindness of their communist heart. At some point China is going start selling their worthless dollars, which will show just how little they are actually worth.
It's amazing that Goldman Sacks PROFITED from the hiding the Greek debt through derivatives and manipulating market prices. This only shows that derivatives really should be regulated. How exactly I don't know but maybe putting a cap on a derivative at $100 million would be a good idea. If banks move off shore to do this business so be it, would that put enough distance to be safe should the speculation hysteria burst?
I couldn't agree more with Keiser. The sooner and faster, the better. The more we delay the harder it will be. And there are some significant changes needed. Fiat money needs to go which is going to change a lot of things. But this is the only way to actually fix things.
If we don't fix this problem, then the banks will take everything because we all are using their future money which we need to pay back. The system is designed to make people fall off because not enough value has been, or ever could be, created to pay off their debt money with interest.
This is not a system of stable value. More money must be created to support the base of money in existence, with interest. This is an ever growing problem because the value represented by the dollar, the economy, needs to keep pace in order to stabilize the value. For decades they've created a little more money than created in the economy but now the economy has no more steam and cannot continue growing except through the shadow banking economy to which we are not allowed access. There has been extraordinary market distortions since the creation of the Federal Reserve and fiat money. That whole big mess needs to unwind before we get back on a sustainable track. This means a lot of changes which could be a complete mess if not actually planned by the government.
Not only that, but let me remind you that fiat money in the USA is actually unconstitutional.
Debt is everywhere because it is what we use as money! If you have money, it is really possessing other people's debts which they have to get back from you because, ultimately, it must go back to the bank with interest. We are literally slaves to our money system. Wasn't slavery made unconstitutional at some point?
The odd thing is that the money you do have usually lives at the bank. If you read the fine print of a new account document you'll see that it is really a loan to the bank. In exchange you get numbers in an account and the ability to (hopefully) get it back at some point in the future. Alas, they use this money as reserves to create new money and perpetuate the system.
Mental Retardation
Justice Department seeking lawyers with ‘mental retardation’
In its ostensible attempt to create a nondiscriminatory application process, the Department of Justice is inviting candidates with "mental retardation" to pursue attorney posts.
A DOJ job listing at its official Web site reveals that its Civil Rights Division is seeking 10 "experienced" trial attorneys for its Voting Section in Washington, D.C. and is encouraging "qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply."
The targeted disabilities it mentions include "mental retardation" and "mental illness," among others such as blindness and deafness.
This is so wrong and lovely on so many levels.
Keiser Report №15: Markets! Finance! Scandal!
Remarkable that we let the government, the corporations, and these people do what they do.
The Anti-Free-Market Federal Reserve
I believe in democracy, freedom, capitalism, and a free market. Why does the Federal Reserve keep insisting that it knows better by implementing anti-capitalistic plans and perpetually fucking around with the market? Please let the market operate! Let it go! Prices are what they should be! That's the definition of a free market! When they manipulate the market it's no longer free.
This includes the proprietary trading systems at investment banks. If the bank can invest its own money, it can influence the market in any way it sees fit. Want to tell politicians that a particular law or not passing a particular law would cause the market to drop (or rise)? They can trigger it. This is called Terrorism, and it was used to pass the bank bailout bill in late 2008. Investment banks investing their own money is a conflict of interest to democracy, their own clients, and the interests of the economy.
@ 9:10
The FBI should be investigating that act of Terrorism by the banks and Federal Reserve System. Even if the people didn't know (and thus weren't afraid), the politicians were threatened directly to pass the bailout bill. Influencing law is exactly what terrorism is designed to do... at it seemed to work, unfortunately.
Official says Fed might buy more mortgage-backed securities
The Federal Reserve would consider reopening its program to support the mortgage market if interest rates spiked or the economy showed new weakness, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said in two new interviews.
The Fed is buying $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities in its effort to prop up the economy but has said it will end those purchases March 31.
They need to stop manipulating the market immediately.
This manipulation introduces distortion in the market. That distortion is not singular. It ripples out through the economy. These ripples required more fixes and those even more until it's the Katrina Hurricane of the financial market.
In order to force the market to be focused on people, this bailout money would have been better placed into the hands of the people. At least the distortion would have been citizen oriented instead of banker bonus oriented. Then again, it's corporate America that gives politicians the money to convince us to vote for them; so it's not too surprising that this didn't happen.
In all, there should have been no bailouts. Failure for companies that are too weak. Success for those that could fill their place. Would there have been pain? Yes. But, that short term pain is much smaller than the long term pain we are now in for now.