Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Rising Tide of Whatever - Option Expiration Tomorrow

 

"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.  I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted.  I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."

Irving Fisher, Ph.D., Oct. 17, 1929 

 

"We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices." 

Goodbody and Company, The New York Times, October 25, 1929 

 

"This is the time to buy stocks.  This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan that any man who is bearish on America will go broke.  Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic.  Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years." 

 R. W. McNeal, NY Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929 

 

"America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years.  On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin." 

Stuart Chase, NY Herald Tribune, November 1, 1929 

 

"If you're going to be in this game for the long pull, which is the way to do it, you better be able to handle a 50% decline without fussing too much about it." 

Charlie Munger "

 

"Life is a school of probability." 

Walter Bagehot 

 

That last quote is the money quote.  No one can predict an improbable event like a crash. 

Unless you have real time access to critical insider information perhaps.

There are far too many variables, and too many degrees of freedom for the powers that be in the regime of a fiat currency and an oligarchical political structure in campaign funding.

But there are periods of increasing risk, even for lower probability events.

And if the Fed keeps saving the one percent and their Banks, and letting Main Street fend for itself, then stagflation becomes a more likely outcome, even though it is an economic distortion of the first order.

But, with no disrespect to Mr. Charlie Munger, unless you are part of the one percent, expect to be told to 'suck it up' if half of your savings evaporate.

Do not let greed overwhelm your common sense, no matter how persuasive the siren songs of easy money may be.

If you still had any doubts, this recent and pervasive scandal of insider trading at the Fed demonstrates how rotten and inefficient and rigged for the benefit of a few that the existing 'market' economy has become.

Stocks were off to the races, as fear was shed and greed became the theme of the day for traders.

Gold rose, and silver rose even more, rising the wave of fearless beta.

The Dollar fell slightly, slipping off the 94 handle.

The VIX dropped through its moving averages on an upswelling of exuberance.

The root cause of these supply chain disruptions are fragile operational systems driven by self-serving greed, the growth of behemoth corporate monopolies, and reckless, short term management.

Stock option expiration tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charts For a Monday Evening - New Car Time - Is it Safe?

You may recognize part of tonight's title from the movie, Marathon Man.

It is just charts this evening.  And a personal observation.

I ran into an unexpected car problem that occupied quite a bit of time on Thursday, Friday, and today.   I took the queen out on a nice Autumn day for some test drives and tapped the rainy day fund for a new car purchase.  It really had not been planned.

In case you happen to own an older Ford Escape, or a Mazda Tribute, be aware that it may have a potentially dangerous mechanical condition that you may not yet fully understand.

Ford has put a literal 'band-aid' on a serious steering problem for some of the affected model years with a recall for 2001-2004 Escapes.  But some of the years after that apparently have the same problem and same component based on internet owner forums I have read and videos I have seen over the weekend.  Ford says they can buy the same band-aid for $90 if their cars are not covered by the recall.  But it is still just a band-aid.

The recall does not fix the problem, except in a Clinton-esque definition of fixed. It just theoretically gives you enough steering control to pull the car over to the side of the road after the subframe fails, ideally without a fatal loss of steering.   But after that it is not safe to drive.

Ford dealers seems to agree, and will only take the car in trade for $500, and will send it to a wholesale auction to junk it.  I cannot really blame them.  The car is not safe to drive.  And fixing the problem with genuine Ford parts is prohibitively expensive.

In order to truly fix the car one must have a replacement for the subframe and lower steering component for which a Ford dealer must charge about $5,400, of which only about $700 is labor from the dealer.  Ford corporate seems to have priced the parts for this repair at about 3 time the comparable market price based on an internet survey I made of other new parts providers for the same part number and also for very similar components for other vehicles.  Nice touch.  I thought only Wall Street knew how to really rip a customer's face off.

You might be able to get this done by a local mechanic if you can obtain a good part yourself either new or used, preferably from a Southern junkyard, for about $1700, or less if you have a full garage and can do it all yourself.  The subframe also cradles the engine and is not a casual repair by any means.  I hear it takes 6 to 10 hours depending on your experience and available equipment.

I found out that the car was not road safe from a local mechanic who was changing the oil and happened to notice that the frame had separated and the steering control was compromised and could fail anytime.   I took it to the dealer and they confirmed that it was unsafe to drive.

Corporate Ford responds to this by saying that the recall had been performed in accord with the government NHTSA and will absolutely not do anything else, at all.  I like the dealership quite a bit and have bought three cars from them, but their hands are tied.  Without saying anything they were obviously ashamed.

The dealer performed this recall in 2014 and at the time it was still 'safe' but no one ever mentioned that it was not really 'fixed' and would eventually fail.  I guess safety is a state of mind when you get to define it.

I maintain my cars well, and drive them in some challenging situations like the bridges around NYC in heavy traffic and the BQE in rush hour.  I shudder to think of how I might have discovered this cheap definition of 'safety.'

The recommended solution for my car, which is very similar to the one in the first video, is to junk it with under 100,000 miles, or spend more than it is worth to properly repair it.  It has no other known problems.  It was one of my favorite cars and I tried to take good care of it.

A long time observer of the automotive industry called this 'the worst recall I have ever seen.'  Thank you Obama administration's Department of Transportation.  Good job guys.

And so today I went out and bought one of the three medium priced car lines that my mechanic friend said are easier to repair and of better quality based on his years of experience:   Toyota, Honda, and Subaru.

This is what happens when trust in a business-customer relationship has been abused beyond reason.  As far as I am concerned that company put my family at risk for a few hundred dollars in extra profit.

This has been my own personal experience.  Your own may certainly be different.  But it is good to be aware of these things.  And the media seems to be at best asleep, cutting back severely on real reporting, or at worst very selective about what it chooses to inform us about these days.

One can make a case that American companies had lost sight of the need for quality in their products through complacency and bad practices way back when.  But they certainly learned that lesson in the 1990's, or at least had discovered how to do it.  And many companies did.

Now, if major companies falter from quality, it is not because they do not understand how to do it.  No, it is because choose to do it.   Short term greed and and executive arrogance can provide a breeding ground for foolish institutional decisions, almost carelessly but nonetheless consciously. This most often comes from the top down, from those who are aloof from the actual business and see only the current quarter's numbers, but do not understand their own companies or their customers.

Could we have any better examples of this breakdown in corporate ethics and good governance than in the banking and pharmaceutical sectors?

There is a price, a set of consequences to be paid— always.  And it takes a very brave manager to stand up to that sort of group thinking in the executive suite.

As for the government, well, I think we all know by now what the problem is there, and have seen the bad behavior and very bad example that they are providing for so many.    Ignore the spin and the optics, and follow the money, and you will see very well where it leads. It may be ugly, but it is not all that complicated.  You just do not yet know what to do about it.

Have a pleasant evening.

Wall St Pleads For More Government Subsidies and Handouts In NYT Op-Ed

"It was the incarnation of blind insensate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs: it was The Great Butcher — it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh."

Upton Sinclair

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."

Erich Fromm

Surely you cannot be surprised by this headline.

Greed is incapable of having enough, by its very definition.

It does not need.  But it always wants-- more.

Wall Street On Parade

Wall Street Front Group Pleads for Government Help in New York Times OpEd

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

June 17, 2015

After the U.S. government pumped the secret, astronomical sum of more than $13 trillion into Wall Street during the years surrounding the 2008 financial crisis to bail it out of its own greedy and reckless gambles, Wall Street is shamelessly asking for more government handouts in the opinion pages of the New York Times. The woman pitching this pathetic poppycock, Kathryn S. Wylde, was actually on the Board of Directors at the New York Fed during the crisis – the very institution that sluiced the secret $13 trillion into Wall Street’s coffers.

If you live outside of New York City, you’ve never heard of the Partnership for New York City. Even if you live inside New York City, unless you’re part of the black tie cocktail circuit, you’ve still never heard of the group. So when the New York Times gave a chunk of its opinion pages on Monday to Wylde as President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City to plead for government help for Wall Street, it really needed to do the ethical thing and fess up that this is a brazen front group for the financial services industry...

One sharp-eyed New Yorker caught this red flag in Wylde’s pitch in the New York Times when she was spinning how vital Wall Street is to the city’s economy. Wylde wrote:

“All told, the [financial services] industry accounts for 62 percent of private-sector wages in the city, and more than one-third of its $700 billion annual economic output. It contributes about $8 billion a year in city taxes — equivalent to the combined budgets of the city’s police, fire and sanitation departments — and one-quarter ($2.5 billion) of personal income taxes.”

A comment was posted by “David H” noting the following interesting math in the above:

“According to Ms. Wylde, the financial industry accounts for 62 percent of private-sector wages in the city, but only one quarter of personal income taxes. This strikes me as an empirical basis for a very different op-ed.”

Kelly Boling of Hudson, New York commented along the same lines:

“Let’s indeed invest in the infrastructure needed to keep New York globally competitive–and pay for it by requiring financial service executives to pay taxes on their incomes and capital gains at rates equal to the effective tax rates paid by New York’s middle class.”

...This shameless propaganda piece, in drag as an OpEd from some civic organization, was titled: “Yes, Wall Street Needs Help.” We certainly agree. But it’s more along the lines of psychiatric help for having the temerity to ask for a handout for its billionaires when the Coalition for the Homeless reports that the number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping in municipal shelters is 72 percent higher than a decade ago and has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression; when there are an estimated 1.3 million children and teens enrolled in public schools across the U.S. who are homeless – an 85 percent increase since the start of the Wall Street recession; and when Wall Street even gets tax perks to ghoulishly and secretly collect billions of dollars each year on the tragic deaths of workers...

Read the entire piece at Wall Street On Parade here.

Do not be surprised if there is another financial crisis, and the Banks come back again with a long list of demands, threatening chaos and despair if they are not swiftly granted all that they desire, either openly or secretively.  Why wouldn't they?

Remember Jesse's Law. 

Since money is power, the greater the concentration of money in a society, the greater will be the concentration of power.   And therefore the less free and broadly productive it will be, and the more inclined that this power will be to narrowly private abuses. 

Unregulated greed will rise to exceed and eventually overwhelm all rational expectations of theoretical market behavior because men are not angels.  And further, there is a determined minority in any society that is given over to irrational behavior and pathological obsessions that delights in abusing reason and rules, even to their own eventual destruction.

Rational expectations, and therefore market and social forces and their models, will fail when undermined by the unbridled greed for money and power.   

History proves this.

 

Pictures In an Exhibition: Who Profits?

Why keep the median wage low, despite rising profits and productivity?

Whom does an increasingly debt-based economy serve?

Who profits from the status quo?

Pictures in an exhibition of elephantine greed.

Empire of the Exceptional: The Age of Narcissism

As a reminder, it is not possible to reliably diagnose someone from a distance. Why?  Because our view of them is by its nature self-selective: we see and emphasize things that support our hypothetical view of them and dismiss or minimize other things that do not. This is a recurrent weakness in social sciences to be avoided. I cannot stress this enough.  Extremes are sometimes easier to see, but most individuals are a rather complex mix. 

As the psychologist in the video below points out, most people do not fit into neat categories of anything, but are rather an amalgam of various tendencies that overlap and vary greatly in intensity and influence. Most people tend to be diffused in their interests.   We can find traces of almost everything in our selves, as it is the nature of being human.  The degree of that trait is what matters, and the other traits in our mix, and how we react to them, and use them in our daily lives.

And we might also keep in mind that we go through phases, and try out different aspects of our personality in different settings and situations, especially when we are growing  What our parents or society might approve of or not helps to shape the final person which we may become as an adult. And some people may arrive at self-actualization rather late, or in some sad cases never reach that point, locked in a perpetual adolescence because of some trauma or lack of appropriate growth opportunities at key developmental junctures.

Even though it is difficult to discern in the individual, certain trends can appear on the macro level, whether it be in an historical era or even a broader culture.   They can possess distinctive personalities.  As an example, the Japanese tend to be self-effacing and socially oriented with a heavy set of personal obligations to their family and to groups.

And yet I have met some Japanese businessmen who could pass easily for Donald Trump in terms of egoism and personal preoccupation. But on the whole the trend applies, or had applied when I last looked at it carefully and at first hand.  These things on the macro level do change as well, but slowly, generationally.  And the cultural self-image may significantly lag the actual change.   Look in the mirror and see what you have become, for it may not be as you imagine.

In the past thirty years it seems that Anglo-American culture has grown increasingly narcissistic. I do not know if there are more narcissistic individuals in society now, and perhaps there are not.

But I do think that narcissism is much more widely tolerated, rewarded, and even admired now than it would have been in the period of 1930 to 1950 for example. And that is what makes all the difference. More people feel free to indulge their selfish and egotistical tendencies, and to cultivate them, in order to be fashionable and competitive.

As an aside, I think this also tends to explain the decline of literature and poetry in American culture, and the rise of reality shows and the preoccupation with extravagance. Literature calls us out of ourselves, ex stasis, in order to fill us with knowledge and the creative impulse, while spectacle merely panders, and flows in to fill the empty and undeveloped voids in our being."

This video below uses a fictional Mark Zuckerberg from a recent movie as an example of the narcissist personality. I do not know the real Mark Zuckerberg at all so I cannot say if it is valid. But I do think that the fictional Zuckerberg in the movie is an artistic representation of the modern CEO or Wall Street fund manager, based on those that I have known or read about closely.

This narcissistic tendency in modern business occurred to me last night as I read Super Rich Irony in The New Yorker. Obama is, by historical standards, a moderate Republican who has accepted the pro-Wall Street and corporate money bias created in the Democratic Party by the Clintons.   And yet he is reviled by the modern super rich as if he were a Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Andrew Jackson.

Don't get me wrong, most politicians are by the nature of their calling a bit of a narcissist, some more than others. It takes a big ego to fill a big room, and to stand up and say, I can lead. But some are more than others, given the variability of human psychology and character traits.

Some of these super rich describe Obama as arrogant and narcissistic. I think what many of them really mean is 'uppity.'  Most everyone else is their inferior, especially a mixed race man of a lower class background.   To me he seems more a careerist  and professional (aka cynical) deal maker as politicians go, rather than an active reformer.  He is the typical modern manager ruled by expediency.  

But one of the common traits of the narcissist is projecting their faults on to others.  Since this person does not serve and love me, and I am without fault, perfect, they must have something wrong with them, or be out to get me.

Everyone has an ego.  It certainly takes an ego to write a blog for that matter, although again, some are more obviously so than others. How can one stand up and say, 'this is what I think?' Well, at least blogs are self-selecting; people have to come an read them, as opposed to people who endlessly spam other people with emails of dubious origin.  Do you get that too?  Where do these things come from?  Thank God for Snopes and Google search. 

But I point this out to emphasize that this narcissistic tendency is not something particular to the wealthy, but is a cultural trait, expressed in many ways including an increase in self-absorption and incivility.  Power expresses itself in the assertion of the will over others, and the cultivation of unrestrained personal power, the triumph of their will,  is the lifeblood of the narcissist.  And this is also why they tend to be rather antithetical to democracy.

But it does seem that what marks today's super rich more than anything is their preoccupation with their own natural superiority or chosenness as more than justifying if not dictating their good fortune, and almost demanding displays of their grandiose wealth and power, even if that wealth has been gained by cheating, stealing, and depriving others of their own deserved rights and property.  Certainly Hitler saw himself chosen by history, and he  often sought confirmation of it.  

For those with money, the growth process might be subject to the same warping so often experienced by an exceptionally beautiful woman or an enormously talented athlete.  How can one learn to form genuine friendships and loving relationships when they are constantly viewed through the prism of wealth or good looks or success on the field,  when there are so many willing to indulge your worst impulses?   There is some obvious merit to suffering and adversity, as it is the salt that can preserve the best in us if properly applied, destroying the worst.

It is the excess of the age, probably due to the circumstances of fortunate birth and an early childhood in which the young learned that greed is good, screwing everyone is acceptable business practice, that there is no law but their desires, and that most people are inferiors intended to be used by them.  Often parental approval, acceptance, the most basic love, is made contingent on the buy-in. 

I know people like this. I am sure we all do. A very successful acquaintance from school shared with me the lessons taught to him by his father, which he innocently repeated. He learned them both verbally and contextually.  And most of them were exactly as I described them in the above paragraph.  And so that is what he believed.  Can this explain why some sons of wealth turn out badly?   Life lacks real adversity and the normalizing experiences that make us whole?

I have a sense that the super wealthy as a class are reaching their self-destructive apogee, which as you may recall I suggested would happen in my longer term economic forecast of 2005.  It has quite a bit of historical precedent.  When their hatred of FDR was unsatisfied, they attempted to foment a coup d'etat, which was subsequently covered up.  That was a mistake made in the name of preserving the system, as so many similar errors incurring moral hazard have been made more recently.

Each success emboldens them to do more, ask for more, expect more as their due.  And eventually they go too far, and fall.  That in itself might not be so bad on the individual level, as in the case of Bernie Madoff who certainly deserves his time in jail, but they invariably inflict collateral damage on many good and innocent people in the process.

And that is when their own failing, and if you will, sin, can become ours if we do nothing to stop it and to repair it. Especially in an age in which narcissists and sociopaths,including their enablers, are actively assaulting the public interest and public trust in order to serve their own short term, selfish ends, no matter what the longer term consequences to society as a whole might be.

Enjoy the read and the video as something to think about.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder
By Mayo Clinic staff

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. Those with narcissistic personality disorder believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality disorders. Personality disorders are conditions in which people have traits that cause them to feel and behave in socially distressing ways, limiting their ability to function in relationships and in other areas of their life, such as work or school.

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by dramatic, emotional behavior, which is in the same category as antisocial and borderline personality disorders.

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

Believing that you're better than others
Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
Exaggerating your achievements or talents
Expecting constant praise and admiration
Believing that you're special and acting accordingly
Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
Taking advantage of others
Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
Being jealous of others
Believing that others are jealous of you
Trouble keeping healthy relationships
Setting unrealistic goals
Being easily hurt and rejected
Having a fragile self-esteem
Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

Although some features of narcissistic personality disorder may seem like having confidence or strong self-esteem, it's not the same. Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence and self-esteem into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal. In contrast, people who have healthy confidence and self-esteem don't value themselves more than they value others.

When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don't receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. You may insist on having "the best" of everything — the best car, athletic club, medical care or social circles, for instance.

But underneath all this behavior often lies a fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better.

The Mayo Clinic 

History Lesson

History Lesson by Arthur C. Clarke has been one of my favorite short stories since boyhood. It contains an allegorical lesson about the importance of context and assumptions in scientific and historical study. It has served me well throughout the years.

The story is of course an intellectual descendant of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, from Book VII of The Republic, which I also enjoyed as a boy, if you prefer to use a reference with a more high brow pedigree.

And now I would like to share an excerpt from it with you.

As the story begins, the cooling of the sun has turned the Earth into a cold world covered by ice, effectively destroying all life and preserving only a few remnants of human civilization.

But this cooling has had a beneficial effect on Venus, turning a once harsh world into a lush plant. After thousands of years, a reptilian race had arisen, and eventually become capable of interplanetary flight.

This race was intrigued by their sister planet, the Earth. A number of expeditions had retrieved fragments that showed intelligent life, but their understanding was still very limited.

As the story begins here, a recent expedition has retrieved several key artifacts, including one that is utterly unique, holding great promise.

...The warm ocean that still bore most of the young planet's life rolled its breakers languidly against
the sandy shore. So new was this continent that the very sands were coarse and gritty. There had not
yet been time enough for the sea to wear them smooth.

The scientists lay half in the water, their beautiful reptilian bodies gleaming in the sunlight. The
greatest minds of Venus had gathered on this shore from all the islands of the planet. What they were
going to hear they did not know, except that it concerned the Third World and the mysterious race that
had peopled it before the coming of the ice.

The Historian was standing on the land, for the instruments he wished to use had no love of water.
By his side was a large machine which attracted many curious glances from his colleagues. It was
clearly concerned with optics, for a lens system projected from it toward a screen of white material a
dozen yards away.

The Historian began to speak. Briefly he recapitulated what little had been discovered concerning the
Third Planet and its people.

He mentioned the centuries of fruitless research that had failed to interpret a single word of the
writings of Earth. The planet had been inhabited by a race of great technical ability. That, at least,
was proved by the few pieces of machinery that had been found in the cairn upon the mountain.

"We do not know why so advanced a civilization came to an end," he observed. "Almost certainly, it had
sufficient knowledge to survive an ice Age. There must have been some other factor of which we know
nothing. Possibly disease or racial degeneration may have been responsible. It has even been suggested
that the tribal conflicts endemic to our own species in prehistoric times may have continued on the
Third Planet after the coming of technology.

Some philosophers maintain that knowledge of machinery does not necessarily imply a high degree of
civilization, and it is theoretically possible to have wars in a society possessing mechanical power,
flight, and even radio. Such a conception is alien to our thoughts, but we must admit its possibility.
It would certainly account for the downfall of the lost race.

It has always been assumed that we should never know anything of the physical form of the creatures
who lived on Planet Three. For centuries our artists have been depicting scenes from the history of
the dead world, peopling it with all manner of fantastic beings. Most of these creations have
resembled us more or less closely, though it has often been pointed out that because we are reptiles
it does not follow that all intelligent life must necessarily be reptilian.

We now know the answer to one of the most baffling problems of history. At last, after hundreds of
years of research, we have discovered the exact form and nature of the ruling life on the Third
Planet."

There was a murmur of astonishment from the assembled scientists. Some were so taken aback that they
disappeared for a while into the comfort of the ocean, as all Venusians were apt to do in moments of
stress. The Historian waited until his colleagues reemerged into the element they so disliked. He
himself was quite comfortable, thanks to the tiny sprays that were continually playing over his body.
With their help he could live on land for many hours before having to return to the ocean.
The excitement slowly subsided and the lecturer continued:

"One of the most puzzling of the objects found on Planet Three was a flat metal container holding a
great length of transparent plastic material, perforated at the edges and wound tightly into a spool.
This transparent tape at first seemed quite featureless, but an examination with the new subelectronic
microscope has shown that this is not the case. Along the surface of the material, invisible to our
eyes but perfectly clear under the correct radiation, are literally thousands of tiny pictures. It is
believed that they were imprinted on the material by some chemical means, and have faded with the
passage of time.

These pictures apparently form a record of life as it was on the Third Planet at the height of its
civilization. They are not independent. Consecutive pictures are almost identical, differing only in
the detail of movement. The purpose of such a record is obvious. It is only necessary to project the
scenes in rapid succession to give an illusion of continuous movement. We have made a machine to do
this, and I have here an exact reproduction of the picture sequence.

The scenes you are now going to witness take us back many thousands of years, to the great days of
our sister planet. They show a complex civilization, many of whose activities we can only dimly
understand. Life seems to have been very violent and energetic, and much that you will see is quite
baffling.

It is clear that the Third Planet was inhabited by a number of different species, none of them
reptilian. That is a blow to our pride, but the conclusion is inescapable. The dominant type of life
appears to have been a two-armed biped. It walked upright and covered its body with some flexible
material, possibly for protection against the cold, since even before the Ice Age the planet was at a
much lower temperature than our own world. But I will not try your patience any further. You will now
see the record of which I have been speaking."

A brilliant light flashed from the projector. There was a gentle whirring, and on the screen appeared
hundreds of strange beings moving rather jerkily to and fro. The picture expanded to embrace one of
the creatures, and the scientists could see that the Historian's description had been correct.
The creature possessed two eyes, set rather close together, but the other facial adornments were a
little obscure. There was a large orifice in the lower portion of the head that was continually
opening and closing. Possibly it had something to do with the creature's breathing.

The scientists watched spellbound as the strange being became involved in a series of fantastic
adventures. There was an incredibly violent conflict with another, slightly different creature. It seemed
certain that they must both be killed, but when it was all over neither seemed any the worse.
Then came a furious drive over miles of country in a four wheeled mechanical device which was capable
of extraordinary feats of locomotion. The ride ended in a city packed with other vehicles moving in
all directions at breathtaking speeds. No one was surprised to see two of the machines meet head-on
with devastating results.

After that, events became even more complicated. It was now quite obvious that it would take many
years of research to analyze and understand all that was happening. It was also clear that the record
was a work of art, somewhat stylized, rather than an exact reproduction of life as it actually had
been on the Third Planet.

Most of the scientists felt themselves completely dazed when the sequence of pictures came to an end.
There was a final flurry of motion, in which the creature that had been the center of interest became
involved in some tremendous but incomprehensible catastrophe. The picture contracted to a circle,
centered on the creature's head.

The last scene of all was an expanded view of its face, obviously expressing some powerful emotion.
But whether it was rage, grief, defiance, resignation or some other feeling could not be guessed. The
picture vanished. For a moment some lettering appeared on the screen, then it was all over.

For several minutes there was complete silence, save for the lapping of the waves upon the sand. The
scientists were too stunned to speak. The fleeting glimpse of Earth's civilization had had a
shattering effect on their minds. Then little groups began to start talking together, first in
whispers and then more and more loudly as the implications of what they had seen became clearer.
Presently the Historian called for attention and addressed the meeting again.

"We are now planning," he said, "a vast program of research to extract all available knowledge from
this record. Thousands of copies are being made for distribution to all workers. You win appreciate
the problems involved. The psychologists in particular have an immense task confronting them.

"But I do not doubt that we shall succeed. In another generation, who can say what we may not have
learned of this wonderful race? Before we leave, let us look again at our remote cousins,
whose wisdom may have surpassed our own but of whom so little has survived."

Once more the final picture flashed on the screen, motionless this time, for the projector had been
stopped. With something like awe, the scientists gazed at the stiff figure from the past, while in
turn the little biped stared back at them with its characteristic expression of arrogant bad temper.

For the rest of time it would symbolize the human race. The psychologists of Venus would analyze its
actions and watch its every movement until they could reconstruct its mind. Thousands of books would
be written about it. Intricate philosophies would be contrived to account for its behavior.

But all. this labor, all this research, would be utterly in vain. Perhaps the proud and lonely figure
on the screen was smiling sardonically at the scientists who were starting on their age-long fruitless
quest.

Its secret would be safe as long as the universe endured, for no one now would ever read the lost
language of Earth. Millions of times in the ages to come those last few words would flash across the
screen, and none could ever guess their meaning:  

A Walt Disney Production.

Arthur C. Clarke, History Lesson

Whole pyramids of learned understanding, highly structured laws, and academic rules can be built on a set of false assumptions, or some principle or premise based not on context but in some intellectual misapprehension.

So it is with the efficient market theory or trickle down economics, for example. Or the idea that by feeding the 'job creators' until they are stuffed one might eventually improve the condition of the many by trickling down.

Granted, all too often these misconceptions of reality are by intent, just another facet in a general campaign of propaganda and deception. But their acceptance by the public still proves the danger of untested and unproven assumptions and building even highly ordered and intricate structures on false premises.

Whether it is in your study of the stock market, money, and economics, or of some translation and interpretation of an antique work, or in reading an essay about an idea or person in history, you may wish to keep this little story in mind.

All too often someone will make an outlandish assertion, and upon questioning it appears that their primary knowledge of the subject at hand is based upon the reading, or more likely viewing, of an essay or video by some individual or group promoting that particular interpretation of reality.  They have nothing else to judge it by, given their lack of investigation and knowledge, but it is duly enshrined in the pantheon of human thought as 'their opinion,' their private judgement.

And their position is often unassailable by reason, because it is not based in thought but in a system of belief. But it is not safeguarded by the intellectual constraints and dignified distance one must place on a religion as inherently a leap of faith beyond the limits of science.  Science and the supernatural are by definition not the same, but complementary.

When someone says, 'I do not believe that I have a soul or that there is a God,' I may pay attention on the most particular and technical of information, but how can one take someone seriously on philosophical and higher matters who is so dull and unfeeling as to consider themselves and their fellows to be apes?

One could spend a lifetime studying the stock markets trying to make sense of them and their movements, and build an impressive body of study and rules, but fail miserably despite all that work, because one has built upon the false premise that the game was honest and subject to natural laws, and not often rigged and controlled by insiders to the very extent that they can get away with it.

Or perhaps there is a belief in some economic system like 'market capitalism' controlled by an oligarchy through the manipulation of money and information for their own ends in the name of freedom,  for example.

It may be summed up in the familiar saying, 'A little learning is a dangerous thing' and perhaps, 'Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.'

"Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst...You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life.

Whereas if they go to the administration of public affairs, poor and hungering after their own private advantage, thinking that hence they are to snatch the chief good, order there can never be; for they will be fighting about office, and the civil and domestic broils which thus arise will be the ruin of the rulers themselves and of the whole State."

Plato, The Republic

As with men and rulers, so with markets and money.

Greed is an excess of desire and lack of empathy and judgement, outside of the virtues, and is therefore most decidedly not 'good.'  A system built predominantly upon unrestrained greed, anger, envy, and pride will not, by definition, be virtuous but degenerative, unstable, and ultimately self-destructive if not put down by its victims first.

"The sad duty of government is to establish justice in a sinful world."

Reinhold Niebuhr

And I suspect that history will see our generation as deluded fools for having believed otherwise, forsaking a Constitution and a legacy that is based upon first principles, actively promoting the virtues of goodness, equality, moderation, the careful distribution of power, and both freedom and justice for all.

The US Tax Burden Falls Disproportionately On Individuals and Small Business

Although the nominal US corporate tax rate of 35% seems high, and especially so given all the corporate funded propaganda promoting more tax cuts and givebacks, in fact the realized corporate rates are relatively low both in terms of historical experience and comparable developed countries. This is because of the many loopholes, subsidies, and accounting gimmicks available to its more influential corporate citizens from a corporate friendly government.

One could make the case that the tax burden is falling disproportionately on smaller businesses and individuals that do not have the infrastructure and latitude to take advantage of the loopholes available to the bigger business lobby companies.

State and local taxes appear to be regressive. The top echelons of corporations and private individuals seem to be doing rather well for themselves. When the fortunate complain that the bottom percentiles pay little Federal tax, they overlook how regressive the consumption taxes on gasoline, food, and consumer non-discretionary items fall on those with little income. Even with property taxes, the wealthy often use the guise of 'farms' to avoid a sizable share of their local taxes by raising a few cows or a token crop.

No wonder that the corporate class economists promote increased consumption taxes, and the oligarchs spend millions to persuade the naive that their hell is a heaven.

P.S. 'Like a dog returneth to its vomit,' so a few readers have made comments by email that rely on the efficient market hypothesis, some idealistic and simple model of macroeconomics, and the 'trickle down' theory of economic progress.

There is little more theory than well worn slogans behind this line of argument, and if I ask them about it they don't understand how it fits together. They have little knowledge other than sound bytes they have learned by rote from the corporate media and pundits, and a 'common sense' that is so far removed from reality as to be almost delusional. It reminds me of socio-economic discussions at university, very long ago, with dour faced suburban devotees of Chairman Mao.

To wit, if corporations pay more taxes, they will just raise prices, raising costs for the consumer. So we should reduce their taxes and take the 'savings.' And if the government raises more revenue from corporate taxes, it will reduce economic growth and freedom and waste more money on illegal immigrants, the unfortunate, and greedy old people.

Men do act madly in herds, especially with the right instruction and incentives, but regain their sensibility one at a time, but too often on viewing the wreckage produced by their devices. And this is what makes the herding instinct dangerous. No matter how artful the deceitful shepherd, the madness serves only itself.

Download Ten Charts from Center for American Progress

Greed Is Not Good

With regards to the global financial crisis, imposing austerity is not the answer. That is like starving the slaves to improve their condition by making the plantation more profitable.   Looting the 'great house' and the barns to feed the slaves, at least temporarily, is not the answer either. The problem is obviously in the system itself.

But either expedient solution suits the external moneyed interests promoting the system who seek only to plunder and drain the assets and labor of others who are all their common prey, whether they feel their kinship or not. An unjust and unsustainable system tarnishes all participants and leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and decay.

It is the root causes of the debt and the imbalances in the system that must be addressed to make any reform sustainable. And this obviously includes addressing abuses such as the promotion of a global trade regime that is inherently unjust and imbalanced to the favor of the oligarchs of whatever political wrappings around the world who hold the greater profit to themselves and leave their people relatively impoverished and exploited.  And it also includes the waging of unfunded wars to protect and promote privileged commercial interests, and a political funding system that is little more than soft graft and an open invitation to corruption by special interests.

It begins with a debilitating system of taxation by the moneyed interests on every commercial transaction in the form of fees and commissions, and the abuse of a money system that is little more than a fraud perpetrated by private interests for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. If you wish a simple measure of this, then look to the median wage.

Greed is not good.  Greed is a disease, an aberration of simple honest ambition and necessary provision taken to excess.  This simple distinction may be lost on a people no longer able to distinguish between virtue and sin, honor and expediency, appetite and gluttony, the means and the ends.  Every great religion, every school of philosophy has cautioned throughout history on the perils of unbridled and unregulated greed.  

And yet this generation would make a god of it, although they may not understand, or care, what it is that they are doing, and whom it is they serve. And yet they will be held to account for their willfulness, foolishness, and casual disregard for others.

Greed, often in company with hubris and fear, is a handmaiden of the corrupting influence of power and triumph of the will. Greed is contagious, and attacks the very contentment of society at its heart, turning it towards oligarchy and oppression.

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction." Erich Fromm

Any system that promotes greed, gluttony, and insatiability as its highest goods and fundamental ideals is a cult of perversion and addiction on a scale with ancient Rome, an imbalanced insult to the natural law, with a fatal attraction to overreach, failure and self-destruction. What the US has today is not market capitalism that rewards the merits and work of individuals, but rather is the product of dishonest and disordered minds, a system of fraud and plunder by privileged oligarchs masquerading as fair and honest markets of legitimate valuation and price discovery.

"Because the free market system is so weak politically, the forms of capitalism that are experienced in many countries are very far from the ideal. They are a corrupted version, in which powerful interests prevent competition from playing its natural, healthy role." Raghuram G. Rajan

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained recovery.

Financial Interests Dictate Sovereign Policy
By Michael Hudson
December 18, 2010

"...The economic problem is not caused by sovereign debt but by bad bank loans, deceptive financial practice and neoliberal bank deregulation. Iceland’s Viking raiders, Ireland’s Anglo-Irish bank and other foreign banks are trying to avoid taking losses on financial claims that are largely fictitious, inasmuch as they exceed the ability of indebted economies to pay. The ‘crisis’ can be solved by making the banks write down their debt claims to realistic ‘junk’ valuations. There is no need to wreck economies by subjecting them to financial asset-stripping.

In such cases there’s a basic principle at work: Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be. The question is, just how won’t they be paid? As matters stand, countries are being told to subject themselves to massive foreclosure – not only a forfeiture of homes, but of national policy.

In this respect the sovereign crisis is a crisis of sovereignty itself: Who shall be in charge of the economy, its tax philosophy and public spending: elected officials acting in the public interest, or an intrusive financial oligarchy? The EU was wrong to tell governments to pay for following its advice – and pressure – to trust financial crooks and deregulate bank oversight. The European Central Bank should reimburse victimized governments for the bailouts that have been paid. This reimbursement can be done by levying a progressive tax policy and creating a central bank to help finance governments.

The proper aim of a national economy is to promote capital formation and rising living standards for the population as a whole. not a narrowing financial class at the top of the pyramid. So I see two major policies to lead the way out of this mess:

First, shift taxes back onto land and resource rent, and onto financial and capital gains. This will prevent another real estate bubble from being inflated by debt leveraging. By holding down housing prices, it will save labor from having to pay an equivalent amount in income tax. Low real estate taxes (under 1% until just recently) have not saved homeowners money in Latvia. Low property taxes merely have left more rental income to be pledged to banks, to capitalize into large mortgage loans.

Second, de-privatize basic utilities and natural monopolies to save Europe from rentiers turning it into a tollbooth economy. Europe needs a central bank that can do what central banks are supposed to do: create money to finance government deficits. But the European Central Bank and article 123 of the European Constitution as amended by the Lisbon Treaty prevents the central bank from lending to governments. This forces governments to levy taxes to pay interest to banks – for creating electronic credit that a real central bank could just as well create on its own computer keyboards.

Government banking is not necessarily inflationary. It finances what is necessary for economies to grow: investment in infrastructure and capital formation to raise productivity and minimize the cost of doing business.

What turns out to be inflationary is commercial bank lending. It inflates asset prices – unproductively. Banks lend mainly against real estate and other assets already in place, and stocks and bonds already issued. This is unproductive credit, not real wealth creation. The only way to keep this unproductive debt overhead solvent is to inflate asset prices more – by untaxing assets to leave more revenue to pay bankers on exponentially growing debts.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The recent 30 years of financial polarization is reversible. The alternative is to succumb to neoliberal austerity."

I think that most people know what needs to be done in their conscience, but their hearts have become so hardened over the past twenty years that the message will be ignored until after they undergo a period of suffering on the scale of the worst of the twentieth century. May God have mercy on us all.

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
In vain you rise early and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep only to those he loves.

Psalm 127

Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Double Dip or Banana Split?

"If the 2010 contraction we are now monitoring in consumer demand for discretionary durable goods scales to the full economy as faithfully as the "Great Recession" did, the second dip will, at minimum, be 33% more painful than the first dip and will extend at least half again as long."

This is the case for trouble dead ahead, a worse decline in consumer activity and therefore GDP than the first, and the likelihood of further quantitative easing from the US Federal Reserve to patch over the inability of the political process to reform the financial system and balance the real economy because of their myriad conflicts of interest. These policy errors favoring a small minority will most likely result in a stagflation of the most pernicious and corrosive kind, high unemployment and a rising price of essentials, that may ultimately test the fabric of society. Obsession and sociopathy are not generally ruled or limited by the equilibrium of common sense and ordinary appetite, so I would not expect the powerful minority to draw back from the brink of this crisis voluntarily: a classic scenario for exogenous change. I would enjoy the moral irony of all this if I was watching from the distant future.

The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful want goodness: worse need for them.
The wise want love, and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.

Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

NBER: Double Dip or Banana Split?
Consumer Metrics Institute
September 21, 2010

We founded the Consumer Metrics Institute precisely because we felt that the economic bureaucrats in Washington were out of touch with the economy that most of us live in. They remind us of those patients sitting in wheelchairs in the "memory impaired" wards at nursing homes: with crystal clear recall of 1937 but no clue about what they ate for breakfast. Thank you, NBER, for making our case.

In contrast, we measure what consumers are actually doing on a daily basis. If, for the sake of argument, we accept that we are not experiencing just "one big scoop," but rather a "double dip" (thereby making the 1930's a "banana split"), we can show evidence that the first dip ended early in 2009. Arguably, we've been monitoring in real-time what could be viewed as two independent consumer demand contraction events that were separated by a stimulus induced "sugar high" last summer. If so, the first dip is ancient history. What is important now is future course of the second dip -- which may just now be revealing itself.

We are far enough "up-stream" in the economic cycle that we can measure changes in consumer demand for discretionary durable goods long before those changes flow "down-stream" to the factories and the GDP. From our up-stream vantage point the "double dip" is not hypothetical, but rather something that we have been watching unfold on a daily basis since January. Now, for the first time, we may have measured what will be the worst of the second dip when it eventually hits the factories -- all because, ironically, our data has started to improve.

Over the 45 days from August 1 to September 15, our Weighted Composite Index has improved substantially, rising from recording a year-over-year contraction rate in excess of 9% to recently registering a contraction rate much nearer to 3%. This is the largest positive movement that we have seen since late 2009. That said, it is important to remember that consumer demand for discretionary durable goods is still contracting, albeit at a slower rate. But the improvement has stopped (at least temporarily) the decline of our 91-day trailing quarter average (our Daily Growth Index):



Our Daily Growth Index reached a -5.86% contraction rate on September 12, which was fully 97% as bad as the worst contraction rate reached during the "Great Recession of 2008" (-6.02% on August 29, 2008). A calendar quarter of comparable GDP growth has occurred among only 1.29% of all quarters of U.S. GDP growth recorded by the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce, since the spring of 1947. This corresponds to level of contraction that should be expected only once in 19.4 years, and it comes close on the heels of the 2008 contraction that should occur only once in every 21.4 years.

One of the tools that we have used to monitor the 2010 contraction event is a chart that we call our "Contraction Watch," which overlays graphically the day-by-day progression of the current 2010 contraction onto the "Great Recession of 2008":



In the above chart the two contractions are aligned on the left margin at the first day during each event that our Daily Growth Index went negative, and they progress day-by-day to the right, tracing out the daily rate of contraction. This chart conveys important information about the 2010 event, in particular how it differs in profile from the "Great Recession of 2008." It has now lasted three weeks longer than the "Great Recession" and is perhaps only just now forming a bottom. Furthermore, that bottom is very nearly as low as the one experienced in 2008. Even if the 2010 contraction immediately starts to retrace the recovery pattern seen in 2008, we should expect at least another 120 days or so of net contraction before the consumer portion of the economy is growing once again.

We have previously pointed out that the true severity of any contraction event is the area between the "zero" axis in the above chart and the line being traced out by the daily contraction values. By that measure the "Great Recession of 2008" had a total of 793 percentage-days of contraction, and its severity can be visualized as the amount of area covered by red in the chart below:



Similarly, the current 2010 contraction has just reached 592 percentage-days, and its severity can be visualized as the amount of area covered by blue in this chart:



The blue area above already covers about 75% of the area covered by the 2008 "Great Recession", and the curve has only just begun to start back up. Looking ahead, should the 2010 event recover from its bottom exactly like the 2008 event did, it would still experience another 466 percentage-days of contraction before ending -- resulting in a grand total of 1058 percentage-days of contraction for the 2010 event, fully 33% more severe than the "Great Recession of 2008."

That probably bears repeating: if the 2010 contraction we are now monitoring in consumer demand for discretionary durable goods scales to the full economy as faithfully as the "Great Recession" did, the second dip will, at minimum, be 33% more painful than the first dip and will extend at least half again as long. This, of course, assumes that stimuli comparable to those seen in 2008-2009 will be available to cause such a recovery during 2010-2011. Furthermore, the upturn that we measured in 2008 started when unemployment was still at a 6.1% rate, substantially better than we are observing now. Absent fresh consumer stimuli and dropping unemployment rates, the consumer demand contraction we are witnessing now could very well linger even longer.

Supporting that concern is the shape of the 2010 contraction in the above charts, which is significantly different from that of the "Great Recession of 2008." Of particular interest is the fact that in 2010 consumer demand plateaued for some time in a zone between 1% and 3% contraction from about day-25 through about day-180, before falling off the plateau. Since our data is always reflecting year-over-year changes in consumer demand, we had anticipated a sharp dip in our index as an inverted reflection of the stimuli-induced "green shoots" of late last summer. The long plateau described above, however, is not a reflection of any such now lapsed stimuli -- and as such it may be a new normal baseline for a lingering consumer contraction. Before we get too excited about a new recovery we will wait until our Daily Growth Index breaks significantly above the plateau levels visible in the 2010 line within our "Contraction Watch."

We are monitoring the behavior of internet shopping consumers on a daily basis. Those "up-stream" consumer activities will flow "down-stream" to factories and the GDP over the course of weeks or quarters. It's really not unlike being far up a great river and watching a water-level gauge predict that communities further down the river will be flooding catastrophically in a few days or weeks. Although our flood-gauge may have just peaked, unfortunately the damage further downstream remains inevitable -- it simply hasn't arrived yet.

The Financial Times Man of the Year - Lloyd Blankfein

How fitting, to mark the high tide of the will to power of the Anglo-American banking cartel. No better symbol of hubris, of the overreach driven by obdurate insensitivity and sociopathic greed, of the cult of ego and the darker impulses of the human heart, that creates nothing.

Honoring the man as the epitome of 2009, a man whose bank helped to precipitate one of the greatest financial crises, if not crimes, of the century, and used it as a means of profit for their own ends. No matter what damage was caused in the process, what corruption was required to undermine the nation's well-being, thereby sowing the seeds of their own eventual destruction.

And no better day for it, than on the eve of the commemoration of the renewal of life, of genuine value, of the perennial yearning of the human spirit from within the images and the shadows, a turning away from the stench of corruption and decay, and into the light.

"For what shall it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, but loses himself?

Not even the whole world, but bragging rights, a false bravado, and a bonus.

The man of the year indeed. King of the ash heap, almost universally held in contempt. And in the end, alone. Not even rising to the level of high tragedy, but merely furtive, grasping, manipulative, pathetic. A monument to banality, and the hollowness of Western materialism.


NY Times
Financial Times Names Blankfein Person of the Year
December 24, 2009, 2:37

The Financial Times has chosen Lloyd C. Blankfein as its person of the year. The Goldman Sachs chief has become the public face of Wall Street during its most testing period since the 1930s, the newspaper said, and Mr. Blankfein’s position and his personality were the basis of his selection.

Goldman Sachs, said the newspaper, “navigated the 2008 global financial crisis better than others,” and is about to make record profits while paying up to $23 billion in bonuses to its 31,700 staff.

The newspaper called Mr. Blankfein “a tough, bright, funny financier who reoriented Goldman. Under his leadership, trading and risk-taking have pushed to the fore, reducing the influence of its investment banking advisers.”

Facing public anger in 2009 — as taxpayers raged at having to bail out the big Wall Street banks — Goldman’s profitability, and suspicions that its ties to governments around the world give it unfair advantages, made it a symbol of greed and excess.

But Mr. Blankfein has rebutted the criticism effectively, the newspaper wrote, “shifting from insisting that it would probably have survived the crisis without help from the U.S. Treasury, to apologizing for its conduct,” and finally, the newspaper noted, in an interview with the Sunday Times of London, asserting that Goldman was “doing God’s work”.