THINGS TO DO IN DUBAI WHEN IN DEBT

yo!...can't pay, won't pay...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
black friday


...in japan...

...In the deserts of Sudan...
...And the markets of Japan
From Milan to Yucatan
Every woman, every man

Hit me with your credit stick.
Hit me! Hit me!
Je t'adore, ich liebe dich,
Hit me! hit me! hit me!
Hit me with your credit stick.
Hit me slowly, hit me quick.
Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!

In the wilds of Borneo
And the banks of Bordeaux
Eskimo, Arapaho
Move their money to and fro....

THE BITCH IS BACK

...here in palookaville...


...people think it's all over...

Global markets hit by fresh bout of selling

Yen hits fresh 14-year high as investors dump stocks

Darling to admit recession is worse than he forecast

Ports face crisis as volumes fall

Dubai is just a harbinger of things to come for sovereign debt

..."Small wonder, though, that this minor tremor has sent such shock waves around the wider capital markets. The fear is that threatened default in this tiny desert kingdom is just a harginger of things to come for government debt markets as a whole. According to new estimates by Moody’s, the credit rating agency, the total stock of sovereign debt worldwide will have risen by nearly 50 per cent between 2007 and 2010 to $15.3 trillion. The great bulk of this increase comes not from irrelevant little states like Dubai, but from the big advanced economies – America, Europe, and Japan"....


...in japan...

...Tokyo warns of double-dip recession...

..."Fears that figures suggesting an economic recovery may have been a false dawn were intensified yesterday when Japan’s Prime Minister sounded an official alarm that the country risked falling into a “double-dip” recession.

With the bedrock of Japan’s export industry ravaged by both a recent plunge back into deflation and the soaring yen, Yukio Hatoyama said that “measures are required so that the economy will not fall into a double-dip recession”.

His comments are expected to spark alarm as other governments have quietly begun to acknowledge the possibility that the worst may not be over"....

FREE BUT DOWN IN THE GUTTER

yo!...canned heat...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day+a year or so



...government sucks...


...the well known treasury department...


...has taken over the country...


...read mish...

OH DEAR...

yo!...bummer...innit!

PENSIONS KAPUTNIK DAY


...here in palookagrad today...


...the planners are breaking the bad news to the proles...


...you have to work longer folks...


...THEY AIN'T NO JOBS...


...you have to come off incapacity benefit and go to work...


...only...


...THEY AIN'T NO JOBS...


POLITICAL SUICIDE


...everyone knows something has to give...


...but...


...not that it should be given by them...


...the fact is that the government has bust the country...


...and that their index-linked pensions are safe...


...not to mention their buy-to-let portfolios...


...paid for by expenses claims (us)...


don't worry


...we will not have to work longer though...


...because...


1. they ain't no jobs...


2. most middle class people work for the government...


3. that means index-linked pensions from age 60...


4. the rest will be on benefits...


5. only idiots who have saved money will pay...


6. obviously that is a very small number...

EARLY WARNING

yo...?

Palooka毕业财务

投降日313

...here in...

...palookagrad...

...all eyes are on...

...中国...

WATCH THIS VIDEO

...the short view...

petey : hope the translation is ok...used a mac widget...innit...!

THE CURE FOR DEBT

yo!...more debt...innit!

PALOOKAGRAD FINANCIAL

+286...

...the story so far...

...the world has gone bust...

...having created too much credit during the Greenspan Bubble...

...the Wizard of Oz...

...failed to put on the brakes...

...before the wheels came off...

ELE

...the inventor of the black swan...

...says that the financial system is very fragile...

...and therefore...

...will crash...

...er...

...that would be...

...collapse...

...like world trade...

...US jobs report leaves markets gulping for air...

...after bankrupting the country...

...with his five year plans...

...comrade Brown...

...is hoping to cure the debt...

...with another credit binge...

...the cruel truth is...

...that the last great bubble was...

...just that...

...the bust began in January 2000...

...and the 2003 - 2008...

...period was a...

...zombie boom...

...the black swan guy...

...believes that they all...

...do not have a clue...

...about how to fix this bust...

HERE IS THE NEWS

...it's worse than that...

...it's dead jim...

...swop debt for equity..

...you can't fix debt with debt...

...ask mish, the tikka guy or the black swan guy...

IF ONLY...BUT ALSO

yo!...down the plughole...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+175...


AND THE NEXT 'FLATION WILL BE


lex : ..."Anyway, what might trigger a rise in inflation? That is the biggest stumbling block for worry-worts. The unwinding of the credit boom of the past 10 years will require higher savings, weak consumption and low investment, probably well into the next decade. That ensures demand will remain weak, and with it inflation too...."FT

'Sell every asset except gilts'

Conventional assets – even gold – are no good as hedges against the inevitable deflation, says one asset manager.

AND

Inflation will kill the gilt rally in the end

The announcement by the monetary authorities in the UK that a policy of quantatitive easing (QE) would be implemented was greeted with euphoria by the gilt market.

BUT ALSO

EXPORT I MANUFACTURE I MANUFACTURE I EXPORT

...here in palookaville we have always been told...

...our economy is f**ked bescause we have too small...

...a manufacturing base...

...we do not export enough...


...but look around the world and what do you see...

...world exports falling off a cliff...

...the great manufacturing economies...

...collapsing with them...



IF ONLY

...christopher fildes...

...spoke of the 'if only' brigade...

...if only the BOE were independent...

...if only we exported more...

...if only we manufactured more...

...if only we had a strong currency...

...if only the banks would lend more...

...if only we could re-start the boom...

...if only people did not talk the economy down...

...if only we could stop the short sellers...


WELL

IF ONLY

THE POLITIX WOULD STOP FIDDLING

...like taking power from the BOE and giving it to the FSA...

...like robbing the pension funds...

...like robbing the savers...

...scrapping PEPs...

...increasing tax complexity...

...creating a client state...

...busting the economy...

...increasing the national debt...

...busting final salary pension schemes...

...while MPs have voted themselves...

...bigger salaries and better pension entitlements...

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 opinion is 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...

...THERE IS A DISCLAIMER AT THE TOP O THE PAGE...

...THIS AINT ADVICE AN WE AINT IN BUSINESS...

...WE JUS SUCKERS LAK YOU...

...PISSIN INNA WIND...

A TRUDGE IN THE SLUDGE

yo!...itz the economy stupid....innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+160...

...here in palookaville we drag ourselves forward...

...against the tide...


...the politix have seized the means of production...

...they have used this crisis to implement their own agenda...

...brown and obama plan to entrench social control of the economy...

...more taxes, more regulation, more state control...



SWAMPTHING

tim : ..."In my view, 1982 through 2007 was the golden age of capitalism. No one announced its beginning, and very few people realized its end, but as measured by the pendulum of social and economic change, I believe the generational timespan of that quarter-century embodies the resurgence, and then self-immolation, of American capitalism.

Off the top of my head, those years, we had:

• Reagonomics;
• Yuppies;
• The great bull markets of 1982-1987 and 1991-2000;
• Lower taxes;
• A more docile IRS;
• A resurgence in Republican strength (think Newt Gingrinch);
• A strong America capable of winning major wars in 72 hours;
• Historic IPOs like Netscape and Google;
• The rise of Silicon Valley from obscurity to the center of the world;
• Economic globalization (think BRIC);
• The collapse of the USSR;
• Hero-worship of the rich (including hedge fund managers);
• Widespread popularity of books about money and assets;

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

The pendulum has just started to swing the other way, and I don't think it's a little bobble before we return to the above. I seriously think we are in for just as long as period - - and just as deep a change - - as the era above. We'll be stumbling our way back to where things were in the late 1970s..........malaise, weakness, and Billy Beer.

What would people think if, just six months ago, you speculated that Citigroup would be a nationalized institution? Would they laugh at you? Look at you as if you were insane? Cart you off to a rubber room?

That, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg. When Obama speaks of a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to change the government, he isn't talking about remodeling the oval office. The "opportunity" is the most dramatic expansion of the government and its instrusions than any of us have seen in our lifetimes.

All I'm saying is that the market's 50%+ plunge is signaling the changes to come, and then the market finally bottoms (and my best guess is that this is going to be in the 4000 area on the Dow), we will have been witness to exploited "opportunities" that we can scarcely imagine today." slopeofhope.com

irwin: ..."Some features of the Obama plan make sense. The tax-deductibility of mortgage interest distorts investment flows, directing too much money to housing, as Margaret Thatcher realised. Taxing pollution makes sense, although cap-and-trade is a flawed means of reducing carbon emissions. Profits from the operation of hedge funds more closely resemble income than capital gains, and should be taxed as such. And estate taxes fall on the undeserving winners of the sperm lottery.

But

...these virtues are more than offset by the more radical features of Obama’s plan: spending at levels previously thought unimaginable, deficits as far ahead as the eye can see, a significant redistribution of the nation’s income from wealth creators to dependants on the state, government takeovers of significant sectors of the economy, more regulation of almost every business...."sunday tim

SHOCK AN AWE III

ambrose : ..."Judging by the latest Merrill Lynch survey of fund managers, investors have a touching faith that China is going to rescue us all and re-ignite the commodity boom. How can this be? Taiwan's exports to China fell 55pc in January, Japan's fell 45pc. These exports are links in the supply chain for China's industry. Manufacturing output in the Shanghai region fell 12pc in January.

My favourite China guru, Michael Pettis from Beijing University, is in despair – as you can see on his blog (http://mpettis.com). The property bubble is bursting. Developers have built more offices in Beijing since 2006 than the entire stock in Manhattan. There is a 14-year supply glut. We have seen this movie before.

Factory output is collapsing at the fastest pace everywhere. The figures for the most recent month available are, year-on-year: Taiwan (-43pc), Ukraine (-34pc), Japan (-30pc), Singapore (-29pc), Hungary (-23pc), Sweden (-20pc), Korea (-19pc), Turkey (-18pc), Russia (-16pc), Spain (-15pc), Poland (-15pc), Brazil (-15pc), Italy (-14pc), Germany (-12pc), France (-11pc), US (-10pc) and Britain (-9pc). Norway sails blissfully on (+4pc). What do they drink up there?

This terrifying fall has been concentrated in the last five months. The job slaughter has barely begun. Social mayhem comes with a 12-month lag. By comparison, industrial output in core-Europe fell 2.8pc in 1930, 5.1pc in 1931 and 3.9pc in 1932, according to RBS.

Stephen Lewis, from Monument Securities, says we have been lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of "soup kitchens". The visual cues from Steinbeck's America are missing. "The temptation for investors is to see this as just another recession, over by the end of the year. But this is not a normal cycle. It is a cataclysmic structural breakdown," he said."...

sunday telegraph

EURODISNEYLAND

Breaking point for the eurozone?

Ireland's 'miracle' economy has turned terrifyingly sour - and as it strains against the inflexibility of the euro, its next crisis may shake the entire EU.

"Joschka Fischer, Germany's former foreign minister, darkly suggested that we would soon find out whether the eurozone would turn out to be "a disaster", while the German finance ministry is vacillating on whether it would be prepared to bail out insolvent states.

The current thinking is that Germany and France, as the strongest economies in the zone and "lenders of last resort", would have to bail out failing states: the prospect of the eurozone breaking up would bring the future of the EU into question.

But the most startling fact to emerge this week is that the country which is seen as the most vulnerable, and therefore the most likely to ditch the euro, is not Slovenia, or Cyprus, or Greece, but Ireland."

Daily Telegraph

Golden Parachute

Dire data and bank fears drive down sentiment

Unrelenting market gloom

MONDAY MONDAY

yo!... mystery tour...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+150...


...try as we they may...

...the committee cannot stop the market from falling ...


...maybe...

...sometime over the weekend...

...some of the bust banks will be nationalised...


...and...


...we will see the dead cat bounce...


...but...


...a lower low looks likely...


ALL TOGETHER NOW


You say buy, I say no

You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no

You see a high and I see a low
A lower low

I don't know why you see a high
I see a low

A lower low
I don't know why you see a high
I see a low

THE DEPRESSIONIST MASTERPIECE

yo!...every picture tells a story...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+139...

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 opinion is 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...

...THERE IS A DISCLAIMER AT THE TOP O THE PAGE...

...THIS AINT ADVICE AN WE AINT IN BUSINESS...

...WE JUS SUCKERS LAK YOU...

...PISSIN INNA WIND...

NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT...

yo!...costa packet...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+134...


...nobody expected the spanish implosion.!.


...here in palookaville the traffic has ground to a halt...

...the wrong kind of money has brought the economy to a standstill...


...the brown boom...

...is over at last...

...now!...if only they can end the...

...brown bust.!.

Car sales plunge in worst figures since 1974

"Luxury car sales suffered most, with sales falling 65 per cent, compared to a year ago.

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



...anatole is 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...

...will be cast out of the galleries...


...but the fat lady is still waiting to sing...

...and she will not be denied...

...you can dance the danse macarbre...

...and drink the night away...

...talk yourself up till dawn...


...but...


...she will sing...

US Treasury in plans for record debt sale

"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

THE MAN WHO PAINTED THE CRASH

yo!...the paintman cometh...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+133...


...petey the paintstick ...

...the father of depressionism ...

...has been offered a show...


...MUMMY...

...the famous art gallery in the naked city...

...is to show his paintings of the...

...great crash...

...at the annex on threadneedle st...


THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB


...many in the city are worried that the works will be lost in the bad bank...

...you know! the one where all the worthless assets are held...

...the establishment see all his pictures as toxic...

...and hope that a show at the tomb...

...will draw attention away from the real sh*t stored there...


ZOMBIE ART


...the critics see the mummy as a zombie queen..

...and tell of how artists shown there always meet...

...a violent obscurity...

...still there's no business like show business...



ART FOR ARTS SAKE


...some of his most famous and controversial pieces will be on view...

...'admiral paulson crosses the rubicon'...

...'the rape of the shadow banking system'...

...'the bailout of the bust'...

...'the triumph of deflation'...

...'the bailout of the bubble'...

...'never mind the collateral, feel the bust!'...


THE CRITIC SEES


...howard huges...

...the famous art critic...

...has seen the show for what it is...


..."protectionism is to depressionism...

...what...

...koons is to pop art"...



THE END


opkin : say! that sure is good news about the exhibition dude...


petey : feels just lak palm sundae!

BUT

yo!..greatest story evva told...innit!


PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+117...


...the story so far...

...america has the worlds reserve currency...

...but...

...structural deficits, bust banks, national debt... an political malaise...

...are threatening to implode the dollar...


AMERICA HAS A NEW PRESIDENT

...but...

...he plans to borrow more money to solve the debt crisis...

...there is no plan to force the banks to declare, in full...

...their exposure to toxic assets...


ENGLAND EXPECTS

...britain has the devalued pound...

...but...

...the rest of the world is also in recession...

...so our trade gap still gets wider...


BRITAIN HAS A NEW DICTATOR

...but...

...he plans to borrow more money to solve the debt crisis...

...there is no plan to force the banks to declare, in full...

...their exposure to toxic assets...

FIRE IN THE HOLD


The US economy’s perilous condition calls for extreme fiscal activism. The new administration’s stimulus plans are by no means over the top. If anything, a fiscal injection of $800bn (€602bn, £543bn) over two years is too modest. But the implication of so strong a fiscal boost is a swift and severe worsening of the country’s long-term fiscal position.
clive crook


Gordon Brown’s government tightened its grip on Britain’s financial system...
...guaranteeing toxic assets and giving...
...the Bank of England unprecedented power to buy securities.
bloomberg

Firefighters are failing and we're all getting scorched

Unemployment will soar to 3.4 million, thinktank warns

‘Time to Sell’ Treasuries, Biggest Korean Fund Says

Help Ireland or it will exit euro, economist warns

A leading Irish economist has called on Dublin to threaten withdrawal from the euro unless Europe's big powers do more to rescue Ireland's economy.

Once again, Britain leads the world...

...in the macabre speciality of saving banks.

...but...

ambrose : ..."Taken together, the rescues may make the difference between global recession and a deeper slump that causes mass unemployment and social turmoil, perhaps destroying the open global order we take for granted. We can only guess....

...but...

There is no guarantee that the measures will succeed. The vast scale of government borrowing may exhaust the stock of global capital. Markets are already beginning to question the credit-worthiness of sovereign states. The Fed may find it harder than it thinks to disengage from colossal intervention in the bond markets...

...but...

In the end, the only way out of all this global debt may prove to be a Biblical debt Jubilee.

...but...

Creditors are not going to like that."

telegraph

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE SAVER

y0!...long shot kikka buckit...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+114...


...petethepainter is dead but still on the run...

...head shot with a sawn off, reactivated .45...

...he was under water at the end of 2008 by 7%...


...he has been tryin ta get to the bottom of the pension fund collapse...

...by swimming the pools of famous silent movie actresses in downtown palookaville...

...he hopes to find the...

...mother of all bottoms...

Distressed asset indices fall sharply

Indices tracking the value of the trillions of dollars of distressed assets that continue to blight bank balance sheets fell sharply this week as a negative spiral of financial distress and subsequent economic pain continued.

The declines – which signal further potential writedowns by banks – are fuelling fears that the first quarter of this year could herald further pain for the financial system, even as many banks reveal sharp losses for the fourth quarter of 2008.

SHORT FOR SHORT'S SAKE


Short for Shorts sake...

Money for Gods sake...

Gimme the readys...Gimme the cash...

Gimme a bullet...Gimme yo stash...

Gimme yo silver...Gimme yo gold...

Make it a million for when I get old..!

Short for Shorts sake...

Money for Gods sake!


SPECIAL LITERARY EDITION

mish : Huddling Under The TARP

Inquiring minds are reading Andrew Jeffery's column, Bank of America Huddling Under TARP.

To quote a recent op-ed in the Journal, which likened the government response to the current financial crisis to the circumstances described in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged...

"Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism."

The similarities are so striking, it almost seems like regulators are using Atlas Shrugged as a playbook for their policy response to the crisis. They must not have waded through all 1,000 pages to see how the story ended.

Atlas Shrugged: Fiction To Fact

The Wall Street Journal article that Jeffrey quoted is Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years. Here is another snip.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers.

With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

...Mike "Mish" Shedlock...


GROUCHO, HARPO, CHICO,

...KARL...

..."Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take on more and more expensive debt, until their debt becomes unbearable.

The unpaid debt will lead to the bankruptcy of all banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.”

...So says the Karl Marx quote that has been whizzing round Wall Street and the City...

times :

"We seemed a step closer to that prospect yesterday.
Bank shares plunged again on both sides of the Atlantic amid concern that more capital injections will be required. Bank of America shares fell 20 per cent on reports that it needed further government help to complete the acquisition of Merrill Lynch. Merrill has suffered higher than expected losses in the fourth quarter and BoA is in talks with the American authorities about an infusion of capital.

Citigroup shares tumbled further, ahead of today's results, which are expected to be horrible.

These falls took the combined value of Citigroup and BoA - so recently the two most valuable banks in the world - below that of Wells Fargo, the conservative West Coast lender.

Back in Britain, bank shares were also under the cosh again, as ministers scurried to finalise another package of measures designed to get credit flowing again.

Gordon Brown said that the toxic assets of banks had to be dealt with, which could require more capital, while Capital Economics forecasts British banks will lose £85billion over the next three years and lending will be slashed by £400billion unless they get more capital.

At this rate, RBS will be fully nationalised before Sir Philip Hampton takes over as chairman.

According to the Marx quote, this means communism will not be far behind.

Except, of course, Marx didn't say that.

The quote is a fake. You just can't trust those bankers. times

1984 : THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

The Ministry of Truth...

wikipedia : ..."is where the main character of the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith, works.^[1] It is an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete rising 300 meters into the air, containing over 3000 rooms above ground.

On the outside wall are the three slogans of the Party:

"War is Peace,"

"Freedom is Slavery,"

"Ignorance is Strength."

There is also a large part underground, probably containing huge incinerators where documents are destroyed after they are put down...

memory holes.

For his description Orwell was inspired by...

the Senate House at the University of London.<sup>[2]..."




ANYONE FOR KAFKA ?</sup>

Adj.	1.	Kafkaesque - relating to or in the manner of Franz Kafka or his writings
	2.	kafkaesque - characterized by surreal distortion and a sense of impending danger; "the kafkaesque terror of the endless interrogations" unrealistic - not realistic; "unrealistic expectations"; "prices at unrealistic high levels"

<sup>http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Kafkaesque



THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE PENCIL


...so!...

...ayn rand, karl marx, george orwell, kafka...

...things are startin ta look serious...</sup>

NEVER MIND THE CRUNCH...FEEL THE DEBT

yo!...film noir...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL
capitulation day
+108...

sirens : aaaaaaahhhhhhhwwwwwwwww...aaaaaaahhhhhhhwwwwwwwww

aaaaaaahhhhhhhwwwwwwwww....


camera : shot from below...lookin up...



...peterthepainter lies face down in the swimming pool...

...he is headshot an has forgotten how to swim...

...things are not as they once were here on sunset boulevard...

...vilma banky would not have approved...



BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS


petey : !!!glub?!bub!! blub!..


beulah : why aint the painty b*astard booked our holiday yet?

zooneh : t'currencies f**ked...innit!


simon heffer : ..." As I expect the next few weeks to demonstrate, the horrors we are experiencing will soon be felt around Europe. Our position, which is now relatively bad, may soon start to look relatively good. That, too, should be no consolation. It will not betoken that our economic strategists have got something right; it will show, simply, that our commercial rivals are at last having as much grief as we are...."


mary an rosa : ..."With the credit crisis causing thousands of job losses in white-collar professions, ministers are engaged in crisis talks with major employers in a bid to find posts for the 400,000 students due to graduate from universities this summer.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, John Denham, the Skills Secretary, discloses that four well-known companies - including Barclays and Microsoft - have already agreed to take part in the scheme, provisionally called the National Internship Scheme.

He also refuses to rule out bringing forward plans to raise the school leaving age to 18 as an emergency measure to prevent this year’s crop of GCSE pupils adding to the ranks of the jobless.

With unemployment already approaching two million, some experts predict that three million people - one in 10 of the workforce - could be out of work by 2010. Another 550 posts were lost yesterday [fri] as Southeastern trains, the Newcastle Building Society and Bovis Homes, the house builders, added to the grim toll of job cuts since the start of the year.

Also this week, 1,200 jobs have been cut at Nissan’s plant in Sunderland, another 1,200 people have been made redundant at Marks & Spencer and 850 at Adams, the children’s clothes chain, while 2,700 jobs are under threat at Waterford Wedgwood, the crystal and china maker...."

simon : ..."It has been said that many economists backed this week's rate cut, as if that is supposed to reassure us. The death of Sir Alan Walters reminds us of his almost lone opposition to the 364 economists who wrote to the press in 1981 saying that the monetarism practised by the Thatcher government – especially the avoidance of debt and the desire to balance the budget – was wrong. Within six or seven years, Britain was experiencing unprecedented prosperity and the country had been transformed. We then had a similar crew of economists telling us how essential entry to the European monetary system was.
I think we can all agree
that a period of silence from such people would be most welcome...."


warburton : ..."I think from start to finish we'll do well to get away with a downturn of less than three years. If we consider that we started April-May last year, then we are hoping to get out of it in early 2011, so clearly we are in for a long haul here, with a major correction of relationships that had become entirely unsustainable. It will take time.

We should probably expect to see two years of minus signs in front of gross domestic product figures. We should be prepared for that.

simon : ..."In fact, even Mr Darling, the Chancellor, admitted this week that he really didn't have a clue what to do to put our economy back on the straight and narrow. Can we be surprised? He may have held various financial posts in government and in opposition, but usually in the shadow of Gordon Brown, and before that he was a leftie Edinburgh lawyer. I am not sure he can even read a balance sheet. I certainly wouldn't put money on many of his Cabinet colleagues being able to do so. Look down the list and try to gauge their hands-on business experience – try to gauge any real understanding about how wealth is created – and you pretty much draw a blank. If you ran a public limited company, would you ask Hazel Blears to join the board? Would you want Jacqui Smith chairing your remuneration committee? Would you be happy for Lord Rumba of Rio to sign off your accounts, or little Miliband to mastermind your product development? Quite...."

david b smith : ..."The Keynesian bandwagon has allowed the Government to go on huge spree, and the evidence from the 1990s is that you could easily have a situation where public spending holds up GDP but also induces a collapse in private sector activity which could be equivalent to the Great Depression.

The economy should return to its underlying growth trend with no permanent loss of output beyond that already caused by Gordon Brown's manic interventionism, unless the quack measures now being introduced by politicians make matters worse rather than better.

This happened with Roosevelt's New Deal and is likely to happen in the US, Britain and other modern economies.

We are producing a big package that looks like the kind of thing that got us into trouble in the 1970s. This looks much more like Edward Heath in 1972-74 than the more effective and well-thought out policies the UK carried out in the 1930s."

simon : ..."To make matters worse, the Treasury has been politicised since 1997, so officials say what they think their masters want to hear, rather than what they should hear. The unthinkable is never thought. Economists with an alternative view are ignored and marginalised. And of course, the Opposition hasn't a clue either, or the time to have one between skiing holidays.

Only one thing will give us an economic revival. It is, and I apologise for being boring, the transfer of money from the client state to the productive and private sector of the economy. This means spending cuts and tax cuts. Everything else is simply propaganda."

andrew clare : ..."Standing there and doing nothing is really not an option. Yes, the end result will be higher inflation at some stage, and there is moral hazard in all of this, but we are beyond that point now. We have to help those people who are most vulnerable.

The Bank of England should buy assets, and I support Fathom Consulting's idea to embark on quantitative easing by buying property rather than other assets. This would get straight to the heart of the matter.

I think something like this is probably going to be needed at some point. Of course, we don't want any policy which unnaturally boosts housing market activity. But we want to make sure that we don't end up in a 1930s scenario.

We know that retail price inflation will dip this year. What we don't want is for that deflationary mindset to set in – people need to be reminded that it's a blip. We don't want them to do what the Japanese did and to start saving 15pc-20pc of their incomes."

THE SWIMMER

buelah : so what about our holiday inna canaries?

zooneh : yo!... jus look it how the cost has gone up...

...2008 feb. one week hotel £648
...flight £404
total £1,052

...2009 same week an hotel £946
...flight £569
total £1,515

add in euros fo spendin money at 30% more expesive...
...rate on our visa last year e131 per £1


beulah : so thats why that painty b*stard be swimmin ...

...in vilma's pool...

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS...

yo!...tidins o comfort an joy...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL stardate : capitulation day+73

...monday mornin here in palookaville and it aint lookin good...

opkin : yo painty!...how come yo aint been postin no stuff much lately?

perplexedly : shucks...mousey dude!..ahm lost man...evva thang gone pear shape innit!...

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

zooneh : whahoppen ta a rally man?

armageddony : " 'Gone, Over, Toast.'

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."

ambrose : World stability hangs by a thread as economies continue to unravel

mish : Housing Update - How Far To The Bottom?

petey : evvaboddy know they aint no sanity clause...

beulah : well if n thats all ya gotta say...bellyachin an stuff...i wish ya had stayed...

...shut up an dumb...

...stupid painty git don know is ass fromma el;bow...innit!

HERE COMES THE TWIST

yo...sauce fo a goose...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL stardate : capitulation day+62

...evva body know...a five yeah plan...

Come on everybody clap your hands
Now you're looking good
I'm gonna sing my song and you won't take long
We gotta do the twist and it goes like this...

Come on let's twist again like we did last summer
Yea, let's twist again like we did last year
Do you remember when things were really hummer
Yea, let's twist again, twistin' time is here...

Yeah round 'n around 'n up 'n down we go again
Oh baby make me know you love me so then
Come on let's twist again like we did last summer
Yea, let's twist again, twistin' time is here...

U.S. Stocks Gyrate as Auto-Industry Rescue Offsets Jobless Rise

THE BOOT GOES IN

yo!...prince atta dance...innit!

PALOOKAVILLE FINANCIAL stardate : capitulation day+59

...ok...this'n be a update on that un


...beatin up on george...part two...


MACHIAVELLI


...Superb at ice-hockey, a prince at the dance...

...He's fierce as tigers, secretive as plants.

...my dad allas called im that...mandelson...that is...can't think why...


...anyway here he be...a joinin in a bellyachin about po ol george...fo tellin a truth...

mandy : "What George Osborne was trying to do in his remarks was undermine the confidence of markets and undermine the confidence of traders that the medium-term direction of government policy is sound.

"That's why what he was doing, frankly, was reckless and irresponsible."

He insisted that the Government's stimulus package, which is to be unveiled in next week's Pre-Budget Report, was necessary to revitalise the economy and restore confidence among consumers and lenders.

He added that this was "internationally recognised", in the wake of the weekend's G20 meeting in Washington.

He also accused Mr Osborne and David Cameron, the Conservative leader, of contradicting themselves on the economy. "Their policies change from week to week," Lord Mandelson said.

ossie : On Sunday, Mr Osborne launched a robust defence of his response to the global economic crisis, insisting that he was "absolutely sure" that he was "doing the right thing".

The shadow chancellor said that he had a duty to tell the public "the truth" about Britain's economic problems and denied accusations that he had risked worsening the problem by warning of a run on sterling.

He refused to back a programme of tax cuts being drawn up by Gordon Brown which is expected to be unveiled in next week's Pre-Budget Report.

Mr Osborne has faced criticism from sections of the Conservative Party over his handling of the economic crisis amid claims he failed to foresee the seriousness of the problem. Some right-wing peers and MPs have called for him to be replaced.

The party's opinion poll ratings have fallen sharply and David Cameron has refused to call for big tax cuts - instead focusing on the need to keep Government borrowing under control.

Speaking on BBC's Andrew Marr show, Mr Osborne said that the approach had been correct and that the party had no plans to alter its stance. "My job as shadow chancellor is to tell the British people the truth about the British economy," he said. "The truth is that it is the worst prepared economy in the world for recession.

times : ..."Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, also told Sky News: "All I would say is this, that a few weeks ago the Tories offered a bipartisan approach, now that has clearly gone to the wind."

Mr Osborne’s position is also considered to have been weakened by a lack of vocal support from David Cameron. The Shadow Chancellor was also forced to dismiss suggestions that his authority had been undermined because Mr Cameron had called in Oliver Letwin, his predecessor, to draw up potential government spending cuts.

Meanwhile, a significant party donor, the retail millionaire Lord Kalms, called for Mr Osborne to be replaced with a "heavyweight" figure.

But the Shadow Business Secretary, Alan Duncan, rallied around his frontbench colleague, saying he was "absolutely right" to raise the danger of a run on sterling. "I’d rather have George Osborne telling the truth than Gordon Brown charging around the world on a journey of deceit," he said.

torybulliestoo : VIDEO HERE