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POPS12 Steps to Economic Meltdown - Nouriel Roubini
Seventh, the banks losses on their portfolio of leveraged loans are already large and growing. The ability of financial institutions to syndicate and securitize their leveraged loans - a good chunk of which were issued to finance very risky and reckless LBOs - is now at serious risk. Eighth, once a severe recession is underway a massive wave of corporate defaults will take place. Ninth, the "shadow banking system" or more precisely the "shadow financial system" (as it is composed by non-bank financial institutions) will soon get into serious trouble. This shadow financial system is composed of financial institutions that - like banks - borrow short and in liquid forms and lend or invest long in more illiquid assets. Tenth, stock markets in the US and abroad will start pricing a severe US recession Eleventh, the worsening credit crunch will lead to a dry-up of liquidity in a variety of financial markets, including otherwise very liquid derivatives markets.
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POPSDeficit forces California to issue IOUs Is it possible that California now has more "takers" than "givers"? Is this the future of other states that have excessive socialist programs? Is this the future of America as we become more socialistic?
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POPSMadoff’s conviction is no example of American justice More. Bernie should really become is a pin up criminal for incompetence, who was allowed to escape for decades by incompetent regulation: both of the traditional black letter legal type and self-regulation. Bernie fooled all the checks and balances and became head of NADAQ. His auditing firm was a small one and a half person operation in suburban New York: the auditing groups and other regulators let that one go
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POPS‘New’ US shopper to emerge from crisis What should we call this new type of buyer, who is no longer defined by his desire and ability to consume? Does everybody become a trader /dealer in their own right buying and selling goods and services on the basis of need, rather than greed? Survivors? Those who don't survive will not be there anyway. Note the sources of the 'new consumer' idea. It is very main-stream, now . We were predicting this trend in 2002 in our report entitled, Consumers: Going for Broke, which also as it happens predicted the credit crunch and the current sharp reversal in economic fortunes.
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POPSThe Transition Handbook, 2nd edition - wiki version More: Resilience refers to the ability of a system, from individual people to whole economies, to hold together and maintain their ability to function in the face of change and shocks from the outside. This book, The Transition Handbook, argues that in our current (and long overdue) efforts to drastically cut carbon emissions, we must also give equal importance to the building, or more accurately to the rebuilding, of resilience.
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POPS'Soothsayer' blogger feels the heat Blame game to take the heat off the financial wizards working for the govt. Like any science, economics has some basic rules, but is complicated by reality. Minerva can make predictions based on these simple rules, as can you or me, and some will be correct. It is the dealing with reality bit that we, and Minerva, can come unstuck in.
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POPS10 people most responsible for the recession Check this link for details on how each of them contributed to one of the worst economic times to have hit us. http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/01/the-ten-men-to-blame-for-the-credit-crunch.html
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POPSThe Economist: U.S. In Depression, Not Recession Where does that leave us today? America’s GDP may have fallen by an annualised 6% in the fourth quarter of 2008, but most economists dismiss the likelihood of a 1930s-style depression or a repeat of Japan in the 1990s, because policymakers are unlikely to repeat the mistakes of the past. In the Great Depression, the Fed let hundreds of banks fail and the money supply shrink by one-third, while the government tried to balance its budget by cutting spending and raising taxes. America’s monetary and fiscal easing this time has been more aggressive than Japan’s in the 1990s. However, these reassurances come from many of the same economists who said that a nationwide fall in American house prices was impossible and that financial innovation had made the financial system more resilient.
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POPSEarth on course for Eco 'Crunch' Consumerism should be not just frowned upon or out of fashion, but seen as disgusting. This is something we as individuals are responsible for- and can do something about!
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POPSSuper Rich: The Greed Game An excellent explanation of both how the global financial markets collapsed, and how those at the top made a killing in the process, and why the rest of us are left to pay the bill . But we're supposed to look at them as virtuous capitalists, working hard and getting rewarded for it. What a crock. Parts 2 thru 7 are available on YouTube, The entire video is available via Google Vid, but the available version's audio track gets out of synch around halfway through. See also: - In Debt We Trust - Money as Debt
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POPS America Will Remain the Superpower But that only means it had outperformed nearly every single major foreign stock exchange, including Germany's XETRADAX (down 28%) China's Shanghai exchange (down 30%), Japan's NIKK225 (down 37%), Brazil's BOVESPA (down 41%) and Russia RTSI (down 61%). These contrasts are a useful demonstration that America's financial woes are nobody else's gain. On the other hand, global economic distress doesn't invariably work at cross-purposes with American interests. Hugo Chávez's nosedive toward bankruptcy begins when oil dips below $80 a barrel, the price where it hovers now. An identical logic, if perhaps at a different price, applies to the petrodictatorships in Moscow and Tehran, which already are heavily saddled with inflationary and investor-confidence concerns. Russia will also likely burn through its $550 billion in foreign-currency reserves faster than anticipated -- a pleasing if roundabout comeuppance for last summer's Georgian adventure.
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POPSThe True Cost of Rewarding Greedy Bankers Note the names of some of these great institutions that rewarded greed. Note the immediate cost to UK taxpayers. I would be interested to see figures relating to the taxes of US citizens' tax bills compares. (Oh, meanwhile, Barclays in London have just guaranteed 2.5 billion dollars in bonuses and salaries to a firm called Lehmans that they just bought a bit of.)
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POPSEdge Of The Abyss "One thing’s for sure: The next administration’s economic team had better be ready to hit the ground running, because from day one it will find itself dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression."
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POPSFed plows $30 billion in foreign money markets Seems like there is a huge black hole out there someplace that keeps sucking all this money down. WTF -- $30 billion -- that is just absurd. And people thought the dot com's in the 90's were burning through money...
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POPSAmerican Ingenuity of the Fiancial Sector Hits All Perhaps this is their strategy? Turmoil and chaos are on the side of those who are the cause. Take-Overs, further "Consolidation", governments to "Bail Out". It all points in one direction- National Socialism or better known as Fascism. Through in all those Weapons and you have the" right " mix for World Domination. Do we get this? Or will it get us?
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