Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

sarbanes-oxley did absolutely nothing whatsoever except employ a bunch of self-proclaimed sarbanes-oxley experts to consult for every poor bastard business that didn't know where to even begin trying to comply with sarbanes-oxley

it's one of the more asinine and pointless business regulations I'm unfortunately familiar with

just as an aside, the small business i own is completely fuckmared. looks like worst december ever will be followed by worst january ever.

I am very glad I do not own a small bricks and mortar retail operation, that is a fact.

or any retail operation, to be honest.

http://www.newsworld.cbc.ca/arts/images/pics/wonderful2.jpg

well at least the proposed plan to allow rapid depreciation of investments will oh no wait that really only works for the manufacturing sector fucking assholes

steel and auto industry lobbies profoundly more effective than guitar store lobby

if guitar stores and sex workers got together they could probably get some juice tho

plus the meetings would be awesome, esp if we incorporated liquor stores.

that would be great, especially the scene where the liquor store proprietors and the madams got in your face about what the hell guitar stores have in common with two industries whose entire existence is dependent on the whimsy of the state's blue laws and you come up with some goofy wayne's world answer off the cuff and everybody cheers

Now *that's* a stimulus package!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/24f73610-c91e-11dc-9807-000077b07658.html

Soros says it's the worst market crisis in 60 years.

what is renminbi?

is that a srsly question?

As expected: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/stimulus-disappointment/

If federal funds were lowered beyond a certain point, the dollar would come under renewed pressure and long-term bonds would actually go up in yield. Where that point is, is impossible to determine. When it is reached, the ability of the Fed to stimulate the economy comes to an end.

This sounds analogous to what happened in Japan in the 90's. Is that the kind of recession we're headed into?

If it hits that point, yes. When rates are at, or close to 0%, there's nothing left to cut. Under deflation, it gets to a point where businesses can make more money by saving their cash than by growing the business, and then you get a really nasty deflationary cycle going on. That's what happened in Japan.

deflation vs hyperinflation again;)

japan is still a strange situation because yes they had/have deflation, but didnt they kind of play a trick, sacrificing the domestic economy, and basically exporting inflation (yen carry trade and all that?).

this is a learning curve for us all, but i still think it looks more like hyperinflation than deflation. (almost all economic meltdowns have been hyperinflationary, other than great depression and japan?). the decreasing worth of the currency doesn't suggest deflation either, i dont know how it will pan out though!

this is a learning curve for us all, but i still think it looks more like hyperinflation than deflation. (almost all economic meltdowns have been hyperinflationary, other than great depression and japan?). the decreasing worth of the currency doesn't suggest deflation either, i dont know how it will pan out though!

well, bernanke has the nickname "helicopter ben" for a reason!

seriously now, i don't see how flooding the market with cheap money CANNOT be inflationary at some point.

This dude is even more pessimistic than Gareth. In ten years' time we'll be forced to eat our weakest neighbour just to survive.

Legendary Funds Manager Predicts Utter Global Collapse Stemming From Bursting of Property Bubble

Blames Bush-Cheney "regime"

In a recent interview on CNBC with Ron Insana, one of the "old-timer" funds manager, Julian Robertson, predicted "utter global collapse" as a consequence of the bursting of the world-wide property bubble.

Often called "Never Been Wrong Robertson", the former head of Tiger Management (once the largest hedge fund in the world), is extremely worried about the speculative bubble in real estate.

Specifically, he is very worried about a world that is sustained by American consumer spending which is in turn 1/4 sustained by a property bubble. He predicts that 20 million people could lose their homes once the property bubble bursts.

Even more worrisome, he thinks central banks around the globe out of desperation will try to re-inflate the world economy with more liquidity that will create an inflationary spiral unseen in the economic history of mankind.

"Where does it end?", Insana asked Robertson. "Utter global collapse," he answered. But not just economic collapse ... collapse of epic proportions.
Collapse and disintegration of all infrastructure, including government.
Inflation will run into the double and triple digits. "Food production will fall. People will be carrying around U.S. dollars in wheelbarrows like Germany," he said.


There will be "total collapse of public infrastructure. Total collapse of medical care systems. All public pension plans, Social Security will collapse. All corporate pension plans will collapse."

"The American consumer is effectively now supporting the rest of the planet," he continued. "Consumption rates in all other nations are falling, have fallen to the point that the tax revenues to governments, that the business and industries those nation states are providing is now a net negative number relative to total debt service and public cost, that this exists in virtually every nation state on the planet now."

And for much of this "doom", interestingly, he blames the Bush-Cheney "regime".

"They have now consolidated power and money on the planet to the maximum extent possible. The planet's net liquidity, that is its, net free cash flow. Is now a negative number. The planet is not simply sinking into a sea of red ink; it is already sunk. The people just don't realize it yet," he said.

According to Robertson, "the Bush-Cheney regime is preparing the nation for transition from democracy into dictatorship because a dictatorship will be necessary to control, in 5 years time, food and water riots." He said "the federal government, that part of Patriot II Act, the internal exile, that the government is going to have to build now huge detention compounds on federal lands, probably in the West where the land is available, to potentially house 50 million or more citizens that will be in financial ruin."

In 10 years time, whoever is left will be effectively starting again, he said.

"More importantly, and I'm trying to think how we imply this or how we express this to the people, what extraordinary times we are living in and how the destruction of the planet has been engineered by the Bushonian Cabal from 1980 to 1992, and then from 2001 to present, which has effectively destroyed the economic liquidity of the planet," he said.

Robertson ended the interview by saying that he hopes he is not alive to see this.

"The lucky ones are the ones who are my age now," he said.

someone's been reading 'the road'.

if you believe in deflation put your money in savings, im there

if you believe in hyperinflation put your money in gold, im there too

Bushonian Cabal

Er?

Actually Robertson must have been catastrophically wrong in the past considering he managed to grow his fund from $8m to $22bn and then promptly wipe most of the value out.

I intend to weather such a crisis by pretending to be the second coming and developing a cadre of loyal followers.

A little googling suggests that story is dubious. Any source?

Clearly that was the work of the Bushonian Cabal.

Yes, apparently most of the comments in that story were invented by one Al Martin:

http://www.movermike.com/posts/1118125009.shtml

This is crazy.

Most taxpayers are going to get a refund of $600-$1,200?

In Las Vegas, they hand out free chips to the high rollers, don't they? And the low rollers get some free nickels for the slots. Same idea.

Jesus Christ a bunch of young people thinking they're the first people in history to experience a recession.

So the stock market is basically experiencing brief memory lapses about the long-term problem and moving on short-term good news, right?

have you seen my blue-eyed sally?
she lives way down on shin-bone alley
the number on the gate is the number on the door
and the next house over is a grocery store

stay all night, stay a little longer
dance all night, dance a little longer
pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
i don't see why you don't stay a little longer

Jesus Christ a bunch of young people thinking they're the first people in history to experience a recession.

-- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Friday, January 25, 2008 2:01 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Link

soros ain't that young.

Dems' perfidy knows no end, and Krugman says why:

the Democrats appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made the stimulus plan effective.

...the plan gives each worker making less than $75,000 a $300 check, plus additional amounts to people who make enough to pay substantial sums in income tax. This ensures that the bulk of the money would go to people who are doing O.K. financially — which misses the whole point.
...If the money the government lays out doesn’t get spent — if it just gets added to people’s bank accounts or used to pay off debts — the plan will have failed.

...The words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt come to mind: “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”

And the worst of it is that the Democrats, who should have been in a strong position — does this administration have any credibility left on economic policy? — appear to have caved in almost completely.

Yes, they extracted some concessions, increasing rebates for people with low income while reducing giveaways to the affluent. But basically they allowed themselves to be bullied into doing things the Bush administration’s way.

i'm 100% in agreement with you on this one, morbius. that the dems signed off on this "stimulus" bill is disgraceful on a number of levels.

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/ca0123cd.jpg

i imagine the republicans said "fine, if you won't budge we won't pass the bill - how will your constituents like that?" to which the democrats said "yeah well what about YOUR constituents??" to which the republicans said "we've convinced them they can't count on the govt for anything so why should we even care"

re that cartoon i cannot wait until these bizarre antigovernment zealots are exposed for the toadying, complacent elites that they are

Chuck Asay makes me want to throw up my hands and say fuck it.

"Hail, holy Ass!" the quiring angels sing;

"Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!" Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine: God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!"

--Ambrose Bierce

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/2008/01/23/wheres_the_bottom.png

they should issue the rebates as visa gift cards, in which case people would have to spend them.

not actually kidding.

Where's the bottom? As in my aunt Fanny?

Haha, I can clearly hear the six different variations on meaningless bullshit coming out of that CNBC screen

today bernanke injected more crack into the system ...

http://mechapixel.com/slags/329/2285EyAN.jpg

is that would just happened up there at the 2pm mark? I was getting actual work done

ritholtz called it at 10 am

don't see why you don't stay a little longer

so we get our stimulus checks by what, August? I NEED NOW

Instead of taking a stand and recognizing the serious errors made in this little economic situation, once again it's ... easy solutions that'll lead to the same problems again.

Who are these people running our country? Man alive.