PALOOKAVILLEFINANCIAL ...capitulation day postponed...
...here in...
...palookaville...
...all bets are hedged...
...as we await the resumption of normal service...
...a V shaped recovery has been achieved in the financial markets...
...and the puppet masters have made loads-a-money...
IT TAKES ONE TO TANGO
...the states within the Eurodisunion...
...are locked in a dance of death...
...those that sell and those that buy...
...those who sell will not buy and those who buy must borrow to do so...
...those who lend fear they will not be repaid...
...the price of borrowing must rise for those who buy...
...those who sell...will not lend...
...round and round we go...
...until the music stops...
...when all must find a seat at the table...
...or fall to the floor...
...and must then sit out the game...
...in the corner...with the dunce's hat...
WE TWO KINGS
...Chi Na and Berlin...
...are kings of the castle...
...all the rest are dirty rascals...
STANDS WITH A BOWL
...our great leader...
...is asking for more...
...more time to rule...
...more money to spend...
...he can't get enough from all us palookas...
...so he stands with a bowl...
...begging for more money...
...so that he can pay the interest...
...on the money he has borrowed...
...mr bumble the beedle...
...wants to give him to the undertaker...
...who will bury him for good...
FATAL ATTRACTION
...but he just keeps emerging from the dead...
...consumate zombie that he is...
...the people of palookaville...
...will vote for death...
...so long as somebody else will pay for it...
BAGPIPE MUSIC
It's no go the merry-go-round, it's no go the rickshaw, All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow. Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python, Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.
John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa, Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker, Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey, Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.
It's no go the Yogi-man, it's no go Blavatsky, All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.
Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather, Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna. It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture, All we want is a Dunlop tire and the devil mend the puncture.
The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober, Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over. Mrs. Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion, Said to the midwife "Take it away; I'm through with overproduction."
It's no go the gossip column, it's no go the Ceilidh, All we want is a mother's help and a sugar-stick for the baby.
Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn't count the damage, Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage. His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish, Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.
It's no go the Herring Board, it's no go the Bible, All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.
It's no go the picture palace, it's no go the stadium, It's no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums, It's no go the Government grants, it's no go the elections, Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension.
It's no go my honey love, it's no go my poppet; Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit. The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall forever, But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather. Louis Macneice
Humorous as it may be with regards to Class and social mores, flirtations with theosophy etc., one is brought up with a start... the realization that this was written in 1937 and, the more specific social unrest in Spain and Germany... the fall of the glass is unstoppable!
bloomberg...Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- China’s stocks rose for a third day, driving the Shanghai Composite Index to its biggest gain in six months, on speculation regulators will adopt measures to boost the nation’s equities following declines in the past month...
...The government may take measures to stabilize the market before the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, the start of a weeklong holiday.
“They want everything to be stable and in harmony,” said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd., in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “They will approve more stock market funds and allow them to buy into the market.”...
...here in...
...palookagrad...
...all things are possible...
...but...
...most things are fixed...
...in theory...
...the gamblers bets should be winning all the time...
Fleet sales, which account for 60 per cent of the total market, fell by 35 per cent as the economic downturn forced companies to cut back on transport for staff.
It was the ninth successive month that sales have fallen compared to the previous year, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said.
The continuing slump in car sales comes after months of cutbacks within the industry with a wave of redundancies and extended factory closures...."telegraph
THE NOBEL PRIZE IS NOT WHAT IT WAS
...anatoleis predicting a nobel prize for brown...
...after all not many enelected prime ministers have a patsy chancellor...
...our nobel dictator has created a spectacular bust...
...and should get some sort of recognition for it...
DEPRESSIONISM : THE ART OF THE BUST
...when peter the paintpallet started a new art movement...
...he did not realise that he would get a show so soon...
...now all the world is joining in the fun...
...currencies are out doing each other to debase themselves at his feet...
...zombie banks are casting out the demon hearsts...
...and hanging the painted one's depressionist masterpieces...
...from their atrium roofs...
DOWN IN THE JUNGLE, GOT THE BELLYACHE...
...down in the vaults the canvases are stacking up...
...toxic and unpredictable art for the new, bust millenium...
...their value rises as the other toxic assets deflate...
...paint is the future...
...for the new bust...
FORCAST NEWS
...suckers are still bettin the bust is past it's sell by...
...they think itz all over...
...normal service will be resumed and the paintings of doom...
"The US Treasury on Wednesday opened the floodgates of government bond issuance, revealing plans for a record debt sale in February and more frequent auctions in the months to come.
The announcement came amid growing fears about US government deficits and sent the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rising to 2.95 per cent, up from just over 2 per cent at the end of December.
The rise in Treasury yields has been pushing mortgage rates higher, complicating efforts to revive the economy. The US Federal Reserve said last week it was “prepared to” buy Treasuries if that would be a “particularly effective” way of reducing private borrowing costs.
“The Fed has to be troubled by the fact that mortgage rates have been rising and the buying of Treasuries by the Fed may come sooner than the market expects,” said William O’Donnell, UBS strategist"...FT
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
iain martin..."When a great many lies have been told, the antidote is usually truth. This can hurt, but without it the possibility of recovery and future happiness is remote. And so it is with today's crisis of capitalism.
If an excess of debt built with cheap money was the cause of the crisis – and it was – then more debt is not the answer. Aligning their party with this most basic but vital of insights was, as the essential Tory website Conservative Home put it, "Cameron and Osborne's bravest and loneliest decision". When the Tory leadership decided to oppose Gordon Brown's plans to borrow and spend his way out of the "Depression", as the Prime Minister called it yesterday in a revealing slip of the tongue, they were virtually alone in the western world." times
liam : ..."The UK - like most Western economies - is in a grave situation. Our money markets are frozen, denying vital liquidity to millions of credit-worthy firms. Unless the inter-bank market reboots, then even hastily revised 2009 Western growth forecasts - down from 2-3pc a year ago to a 1-2pc contraction now - could turn out to be too optimistic. We face the very real danger of chronic unemployment across the so-called "advanced economies" and widespread social unrest.
Yet the Keynesian bail-out solution, accepted as "essential" by practically every mainstream commentator, will do nothing to unfreeze our credit markets. It's even more dangerous than the disease it's supposed to cure.
Panicked politicians have now closed their ears to reason and are ripping up the rules. And as the bail-out continues, and the investment banks channel public funds to senior executives, the vested interests that caused this crisis are adding insult to injury.
With failure and incompetence thus rewarded, huge damage is being done to the very fabric of Western market-driven commerce. That could spark a damaging populist backlash, recreating the economic dark ages of heavy regulation and state diktat, crushing the entrepreneurial spirit that has long driven human progress." Sunday Telegraph
irwin : ..."The federal government is determined to shore up almost any firm that claims to be too big or “too interconnected to fail”, and to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, broadly defined. Skittish consumers are borrowing and spending less, but government spending will more than make up for this. The wall of money stashed in low-paying Treasury IOUs will sooner or later wash back into shares and corporate bonds. The $500 billion that Bernanke will use to buy up mortgage-backed securities cannot but help to loosen that part of the credit market, just as the bailout of General Motors’ credit arm, GMAC, will make it easier for less credit-worthy consumers to buy cars with no down-payment and no interest charges. Moves such as that might be recreating the excess credit culture that brought us to this pass, but better that than a prolonged recession — so believe politicians for whom the 2010 elections are just around the corner, and Bernanke, whose claim to academic fame is his study of the causes of the Great Depression.
It will be surprising indeed if all of these moves don’t put the economy on the path to recovery by the end of the year. And on the path to a round of inflation that Larry Summers, tipped to occupy the Fed chairman’s seat, and other Obama advisers feel they can pinch off by quickly draining excess liquidity from the economy by raising interest rates and — you guessed it — taxes. Holders of dollars hope these economist-paragons are not prisoners of their adoring press; otherwise, the dollar will race the pound to the bottom of the currency heap." Sunday Times
from the big picture : ..."Readers often ask me about Richard Russell’s (Dow Theory Letters) viewpoint on the stock market. Here is his latest take on matters: “It occurs to me that this is a good time to remember my old friend Marty Zweig’s classic warnings: ‘Don’t fight the tape, don’t fight the Fed’. Well, if you are bearish on 2009, you are indeed fighting the Fed and probably the tape. Why do I say that? Because the Bernanke Fed is going all out in its effort to turn the US economy around. Bernanke says the Fed will do whatever it takes to halt the current trend to deflation and to bring back prosperity and mild inflation to the US.
Bernanke considers himself an expert on the great depression and on the Japanese deflation as well. Trying to act quickly, Bernanke has come out blazing with 8 new policy tools, including the TALF, TARP, PDCF, ABCPMMMF, CPFF, TAF, and MMIFF to go on top of Open Market Operations, Discount Rate setting, and setting reserve requirements.
The result so far is deflation. The result in Japan was deflation.
There is only one way to defeat deflation and that is to not let the conditions that foster it to build up in the first place. What caused this deflationary bust is the credit boom that preceded it. What caused the great depression was the credit boom that preceded it. Hoover's policies and FDR's policies made the great depression worse.
Bernanke's policies are going to make this depression worse. Yes, I used the word depression. It may not be as big as the great depression, but the word "recession" does not do justice to what we are in and what is coming down the pike." mish
painty : jus a few thoughts from out there...
...oh...yeah! an this from marc faber...nod ta big picture...
paintybynumbers : yo beuly!..yo said santa lookin pooped aht...innit!..onna 24th dec...
beulah : f**k off paintstain yo bein a pain!...anyway...wottin doin from here on in?
NB chart is uk based and funds reflect the effect of currency movements
charts from equitable life are used as an illustration of sector performance comparisons only and not as a commentary on their investment performance. no opinionis offered here either for or against equitable life as a pension company...
...they just happen to have these charts... ...which i find very helpful... ...when comparing sector fund performance...
charts from equitable life are used as an illustration of sector performance comparisons only and not as a commentary on their investment performance. no opinionis offered here either for or against equitable life as a pension company...
...they just happen to have these charts... ...which i find very helpful... ...when comparing sector fund performance...
merryn : ..."Look at the speed at which the high street is going bankrupt; at the huge rises in unemployment; at the ongoing contraction of credit; the collapse of sterling (which suggests the rest of the world isn’t too optimistic about the UK); at the house price crash; and at the falls in consumer confidence.
Then ask a small business owner how he feels. According the Tenon Forum, more than 70 per cent of owners say that the recession has had a negative effect on their business and 26 per cent have cut staff as a result. Only 53 per cent feel positive – down from 86 per cent a year ago. Add it all up, and deflation combined with a long recession looks to be more than just a passing threat to be dealt with by chucking £60 at the odd pensioner.
Finance ministers and central bankers around the world know this. Hence the state bailouts, the frantic cutting of interest rates, the huge rises in public spending and the talk of tax cuts. They’re all aimed, not so much at helping “hard working families” in the short term, but at preventing long-term Japan- style deflationary recession.
For now, none of these measures is likely to make the slightest bit of difference: the scale of the deleveraging of the economy is just too huge. That means sensible investors should still be steering well clear of all risk. So no new exposure to much in the way of equities, holiday villas in Estonia or commercial property – regardless of the bear market rallies that are doubtless on the way (the run-up to Christmas is usually good for equities and it is easy, if slightly wrong-headed, to argue that they are cheap).
Instead, stick with gilts in anticipation of further big falls in interest rates. It might seem that all the misery the world could face is priced in but, in the UK, there is still 3 per cent to go before rates hit zero. We may well get there. more FT
It's interesting how short-sighted many so-called experts are when it comes to understanding the pace and path of forces swirling through the economy.
Even when it was apparent to everyone that the bubble had burst in housing, for example, some forecasters were predicting that municipal finances would not be seriously affected.
Aside from wishful thinking, one reason for the cognitive dissonance appeared to stem from the fact that people were not getting immediate reports from state and local officials that budgets were being wracked by falling revenues and rising costs.
Yet that should not have been a surprise to anyone. There are in-built delays, such as the time it takes to build a house or the grace period allowed for tax receipts to be remitted to authorities, that would postpone the moment of reckoning for months -- or longer.
The same holds true in terms of the state of the overall economy. The optimists seem to be saying that since today's data are not so bad, fears about a serious downturn are overblown.
As it happens...
Charles Hugh Smith : ..."Breadlines didn't form in November 1929--the structural damage took years to play out then, and it will take years to play out now. So don't rush things, Peggy--we'll get to a visible Depression soon enough..."The Coming Great Depression: Leaving Fantasyland."
"Russia is considering using money from its national wealth fund and pension fund to support financial markets where necessary in the future, Alexei Kudrin, finance minister said on Thursday as the country’s stock market inched higher following moves to bolster confidence.....
Mr Kudrin’s comments were an apparent volteface as he has previously strongly opposed investing the national wealth fund in the country’s financial markets on the grounds that such a move would be inflationary and market distorting.".....FT
pickitypaint : an i thought it jus ah side wot don it...
spider : they aint no sides no mo boss... wall come dahn an all, man...KGB retired to DUBAI innit!
'cat : where do they get em fro man?...someboddy wake im up...
"I've been going along for a long time now, hoping help will come from above...."
Well... we are all wet with excitement here in the loft. The unfinished magnum opus is collecting dust on the easel as we sit glued to the screens. The stock market is spiraling down ... "its a f***ing waterfall". "look out below". "May Day, May Day" SOS.
The Wizard of Oz has been found out and ... BREAKING NEWS ...Financial rocket scientists have diplomas instead of brains... Medals instead of courage... and worst of all No hearts! - just tickers!
"What does it all mean Peter?" asks Opkins (the mouse) "looks like it's back to the 70's. - Unions are bringing their members out on strike - their pay is failing to keep up with inflation. - Oil is rocketing in price. - House prices are going through the roof. - There's a banking crisis. - Pay rises are running into double digits. - Interest rates reach 15%. "
"Yo! - painter dude, slow down man. House prices aint risin, they fallin man!" - (its Spider) he's been on the web checkin out Nouriel Roubini.
Seems like this time it's different! Pay aint rising for the workin stiffs, real estate sucks, interest rates is low. It aint inflation man! - it's deflation, comin to get ya from Japan. seems like they've had it for yonks and yonks.
They had a property boom/bust and then Zombie banks. It was all covered up...swep under the carpet instead of bein busted out and started over. Looks like thats wot they tryin here now.
"Spider yo full o shit man. yo aint nuthin but a poxy spider anyway. And that web o yorn is just bollocks dude."
Wait a minute guys (it's the mouse!) This swot in America (Rogof) has got a interestin take on this...
THE global economy is a runaway train that is slowing, but not quickly enough. That is what the extraordinary run-up in prices for oil, metals, and food is screaming at us.
The spectacular and historic global economic boom of the past six years is about to hit a wall. Unfortunately, no one, certainly not in Asia or the US, seems willing to bite the bullet and help engineer the necessary co-ordinated retreat to sustained sub-trend growth, which is necessary so that new commodity supplies and alternatives can catch up.
Instead, governments are clawing to stretch out unsustainable booms, further pushing up commodity prices, and raising the risk of a once-in-a-lifetime economic and financial mess. All this need not end horribly, but policy makers in most regions have to start pressing hard on the brakes, not the accelerator.
Don’t look to the US for leadership in a presidential election year. On the contrary, the US government has been handing out tax-rebate cheques so that Americans will shop until they drop .....
