Franklin Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address: A Fitting Reminder For Our Crisis Today

I remember my grandmother telling me how she and her family listened to this speech on the radio, in the dark days in the depths of the Great Depression. It is still hard for us now to appreciate how desperate and fearful the people were then. We think that we know, but most of us do not genuinely understand. How can we?

"Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone."

I never read it in full, but like most people just remember the famous quote about fear.

It's worth reading this. It shows a mindset in terrible, overwhelming times that was determined to set things right, not to take care of business, but to address the business of the people directly, and not only the immediate concerns of the crisis but the long term problems that caused the financial collapse in meaningful ways.

Ways, I should add, that stood the test of time until they were overturned in the 1990's by the efficient markets ideology and a multi-million dollar lobbying effort by Wall Street.

"There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly. Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency."

Compare these words with those of the current president, and his slowness to respond with effective reform, and the ordering of his priorities. Does Obama do anything that is not first vetted by the corporate status quo? The most elite elements of the American establishment engaged in a plot to overthrow the Roosevelt administration, and found an investment climate to their liking in fascist Germany, even into the 1940's. How soon we forget.

Like him or not, FDR was a giant, a great leader, and his priorities were clear in his words and actions. He was a voice of hope and concern for the individual when the better part of the developed world was entwining itself in fascism, corporatism, militarism, and the spiral of self-destruction.

In comparison, for all his hypnotic rhetoric, Obama seems very insubstantial, and you'll forgive me for speaking so plainly, he appears to be a cheap bullshit artist in the service of special interests. And the majority of the Congress with him.

h/t Yves for the link to this speech.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
First Inaugural Address
Saturday, March 4, 1933

"I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels.

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities.

It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character.

There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come."

Wall Street Thinks You Are a Jealous Little Malcontent

After thinking it over, and listening carefully to the discussion on financial television and the news today in reaction to the proposal for a special bank tax, I can come to no other conclusion. Wall Street thinks that the American people, who came to their aid after the collapse of a monumental and most likely fraudulent bubble, are jealous little malcontents.

They believe that the public wants to limit the bonuses paid by Wall Street because they are just jealous. Or stupid and petty. At least they wish to leave their viewers and readers with that impression.

That's the long and short of it. You, average working stiff and retiree, are just a jealous little malcontent who envies the great success of the financial sector, much like some foreign agitator who attacks the West because they envy its freedoms.

And you are seeking retribution, revenge. That is what this bank tax is all about, retribution.

An economics professor just admitted that he too feels a need for retribution at times, as an emotional response, but being a more educated fellow he sees how negative that is. Instead he proposes that if we must have some bank tax that we divert the funds received into a bank holding fund, a kind of a TARP II, to pay for future financial disasters. Forget about reform. The banks are too smart for it.

I would not call it jealousy or a need for retribution.

I would say that the people as a whole have a sense of right and wrong, a sense of fairness and balance, a sense of outrage that is being held in check by patience, a remarkable forebearance, but wish to see justice done for themselves and their children, because it is the right thing, the only practical thing, to do.

But I can also understand why the Wall Street Bankers and the financial elite would see this as jealousy and envy.

Sociopath: (so⋅ci⋅o⋅path) a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

The most amoral, pathological son of a bitch I ever worked with, who by the way was enormously charismatic and charming when on public display, was a big tech entrepreneur from the Boston area. When his grandiose schemes started to fall apart, as much from the impracticality of his ego as from the fact that no one would trust him any longer, having senselessly betrayed everyone including his closest friends, he said to me in all the sincerity he could muster, "I am failing because people want to drag me down to their level."

And I can assure you, the halls of too many corporations and big government are infested with such power needing, neurotically driven personality types.

This is what renders any notion of self-regulation and efficient markets the romantic fantasy that they are. People are not uniformly rational and moderate in their behaviour. All people are not possessed of a natural goodness and a self-effacing moderation.

This is what makes the rule of law, the Constitution, so indispensable.

This is not to say that their enablers, the financial demimonde, are sociopaths. They are doing what enablers too often do; go along to get along, say and do whatever is required for pay. Camp followers, as they used to be called.

And as for what happened, well, as one well-heeled, successful young manager advised, "Older people are easy to handle. You just scare them. Then they do whatever they are told."

In his mind 'older' was anyone over 40. And as for the rest of the people, well, you just play on their other emotions like hatred and greed and prejudice. He saw absolutely nothing wrong with this, and was so straightfoward and unabashed in this view that it made my blood run cold, because it was clear that he was not alone in this perspective. And it is obvious that Tim, Ben, and Hank did exactly this, and it worked.

And so now they hit the theme that if the banks are taxed, they will just find ways around the restrictions, and keep doing what they wish to do with bonuses and speculation, but may stop lending to the people for their commercial and personal needs, to punish them.

So there you have it. You are a jealous, envious, little nobody desiring retribution from your betters in the land that your fathers fought and died for.

And not only that, but many of your middle class fellows would agree. They would not think this about themselves of course, but about you, the other. The lazy stupid one. There is no easier way to elevate yourself in your own mind than to just put down, impoverish, the other.

And the banks and their enablers in the government will use this, and shape your thinking with it.

You cannot say that you have not been warned. Many times. Money is power, and in a free republic power must be restrained with checks and balances, with a continuing effort and vigilance.

"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good." John Adams

There can be no easy truce, no peaceful resolution of the current crisis, until the banks are restrained, and the political and financial systems are reformed, and balance is restored to the economy.

"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant." H. L. Mencken

Never allow yourself to succumb to hatred and a desire for retribution rather than justice. It is always wrong to hate, because the ultimate tragedy is that we become what we hate, we take the shape of that which possesses our passions, thoughts and attention, we adopt its methods and distortions, even if as in a mirror, until we too are misshapen and lost. And that is the real tragedy, how the whole world can descend into a whirlpool of madness, and become blind. So let us appeal to the law, and to justice, at every turn.

Mr. Obama. Reform these banks.

US Equity Market Options Expiration: Shenanigans Central

For those of you not keeping track, tomorrow is option expiration for the US stock exchanges. This normally precipitates an unusual amount of gaming and painting on the tape, as the writers and holders of puts and calls shove the prices around to inflict the most pain on anyone foolish enough to play their game.

Intel reports after the bell tonight and the market is expecting great things from them.

Tomorrow the US reports CPI, and then heads into a three day weekend, as Monday is Martin Luther King day in the US. Martin Luther King had a dream; and this may not be it.

The SP 500 futures have been the lead sled dog in this rally with the banks carrying the water. The daily chart has a rising wedge on it that is quite ominous, but we recall the rising trend in the 2003-7 stock reflation that never broke, and kept rising on light volumes to the bubble peak. And then of course it collapsed, with the other bubbles, of which it was a symptom, compliments of the Federal Reserve and the Bush Treasury.



Here is the last reflationary bubble that the Treasury and the Fed created. Remember that one?

Who Is the 'One Big Bidder' For US Treasuries?

There are a number of possibilities for the identity of the non-primary dealer domestic source of enormous purchases at the longer end of the yield curve in recent US Treasury auctions.

It could be a misclassification, a branch of a bank representing a foreign power. The problem with this theory is that foreign Central Banks have a reluctance to buy the long end of the curve.

It also could be a legitimate domestic purchaser like a pension fund compelled to match duration of obligations, as is required by a little noted ruling of the US government a couple of years ago. They might be shifting out of other long term instruments with similar durations but more risk.

It might even be PIMCO. They certain have the money as the world's biggest bond fund, and they do offer two Treasury ETF's which, although not directly related to the products bought, might be relevant on a cross trade. And PIMCO has recently been talking down Treasuries in favor of corporates, which doesn't mean anything since traders often 'talk their book.' Still, unless it is for the ETFs it is hard to justify buying the long durations straight up in size. And while PIMCO says they do not like Treasuries, Benny and the Fed said they are buying long to keep interest rates lower. Why doubt them?

And of course, it might very well be the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Treasury via the Exchange Stabilization Fund.

It could also be the big bidder who comes in with some regularity and smashes down the price of the precious metals, with the obvious intent of manipulating the market, like clockwork just after the PM fix in London with some frequency.

It might even be the mysterious bidder who stands ready to buy the SP futures at every weakness, maintaining a floor on the market, and a steady drift higher in prices, with no change in fundamental underpinnings. Their hand in the market is apparent.

It is less probable, given the state of market manipulation by a few big proprietary trading desks riding another wave of cheap FEd money, but it might even be the party that entered the US equity market yesterday at 12:03 PM with a HUGE order (228,000 contracts) to buy the SP futures. As Larry Levin noted, "As of now I don't have a firm answer, but whether it was HFT activity, the "Helicopter," or a massive cross trade, it sure set the bottom in for the afternoon. Everyone in the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P pits were talking about it and nobody was willing to sell into that massive bid." And so the market rallied once again into its current peak. No doubt it will be blamed on Monsieur Fat Fingers. Funny how lucky the big prop traders are with their reckless accidents, with millions gained from gaming the market, and all by accident.

As the article from the Financial Times indicates, it might never be possible to find out who this is, unless there is an audit of the market that is made public. As Edmund Burke noted, "Fraud is the Minister of Injustice" and it is my experience that opacity is the accomplice of fraud. Who has the most to hide these days?

Personally I think the Fed is buying across the yield curve to affect interest rates, and Treasury takes care of stocks and commodities through the Exchange Stabilization Fund, and friends in a few key banks, but who can say for sure, without the power of wiretap, audit, and subpoena?

If this is price manipulation, no matter the intentions or beneficiaries, it is likely that it is mispricing risk in a big way, misallocating investments, and will eventually will fail. Its failure will cause a great deal of pain in the real economy for innocent bystanders, and will end in tears. And when that time comes, expect those who created the crisis to make the public another offer that they think you cannot refuse, in excess of their last demand for 700$ billions, tout de suite.

You decide what is most likely, and what needs to be done about it, if anything.

More than a few people are wondering at the lack of response from the people in various nations, particularly in the UK and the US. Here is some old knowledge that might prove illuminating.

National Madness
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1910

"This slow and awful self-hypnotism of error is a process that can occur not only with individuals, but also with whole societies. It is hard to pick out and prove; that is why it is hard to cure. But this mental degeneration may be brought to one test, which I truly believe to be a real test.

A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so long as it does them in an extravagant spirit. But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State is growing insane...

For madness is a passive as well as an active state: it is a paralysis, a refusal of the nerves to respond to the normal stimuli, as well as an unnatural stimulation. There are commonwealths, plainly to be distinguished here and there in history, which pass from prosperity to squalor or from glory to insignificance, or from freedom to slavery, not only in silence, but with serenity."

And in this slow descent into madness, the worst is surely yet to come.

Financial Times
Direct bids for US Treasury notes lead to speculation over buyer
By Michael Mackenzie in New York
January 14 2010 02:00

Auctions of US Treasury notes this week have attracted extremely strong buying from domestic institutional investors, fuelling speculation that "one big bidder" has decided to defy the conventional wisdom on Wall Street that US government debt is due for a fall.

Yesterday, direct bids accounted for 17 per cent of the sales of $21bn in 10-year Treasury notes, far higher than the recent average of 7.4 per cent. It was the highest percentage of direct bids in a 10-year Treasury auction since May 2005.

On Tuesday, direct bids accounted for a record 23.4 per cent of the bidding for $40bn in three-year notes, up from an average direct bid of 6 per cent.

Market participants say the unusually high level of direct bidding suggests that a large investor is looking to accumulate Treasuries without alerting the primary dealers on Wall Street to its intentions.

"It appears to us that someone is trying to hide their apparent interest in owning these auctions from the rest of the market," said David Ader, strategist at CRT Capital.

Rick Klingman, managing director at BNP Paribas, said: "It is unusual to see such a spike in the direct bid and I would imagine it is one big bidder. There is no way we will find out who it is, not now, or ever."

The surge in direct bidding is particularly notable because it comes after predictions that the record levels of Treasury debt issuance would exhaust investor demand, driving yields higher.

Among the most high-profile warnings came from Pimco, manager of the largest bond fund, which raised concerns about the escalating supply of US Treasury debt.

Attention will now focus on whether there is similar direct demand for today's $13bn 30-year bond sale.

The 10-year notes were sold at a yield of 3.754 per cent yesterday, the highest rate awarded for a note sale since June, when they were issued at 3.99 per cent. At the start of the year the yield on 10-year notes briefly traded at 3.90 per cent, as many investors talked down the prospects for Treasuries. The note traded at about 3.70 per cent earlier this week and was at 3.70 per cent late yesterday.

Under the three main classifications of buyers in Treasury debt sales, direct bidders are generally domestic non-primary dealer banks and large institutional investors. Normally their presence at Treasury auctions is small, as they usually buy debt through the primary dealer network, which currently numbers 18 banks and broker/dealers.

Retail Sales "Unexpectedly Fall In December"

"Unexpected" only because we have been so systematically misled by the government and the financial media about the state of the US economy.

People bought in November in expectations and a believe in the recovery. And buying tailed off quickly in December as they realized it was a hoax: there would be instead of recovery a long cold Kondratieff winter.


Yahoo Finance
Retail sales unexpectedly fall in December
January 14, 2010, 8:34 am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell in December as consumer spent less on vehicles and an array of other goods during the holiday shopping month, data showed on Thursday, raising concerns about the durability of the economy's recovery.

The Commerce Department said total retail sales fell 0.3 percent last month, the first decline in three months, after rising by an upwardly revised 1.8 percent in November. Sales in November were previously reported to have increased 1.3 percent.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales gaining 0.5 percent last month...

Watching the Senate Testimony

Ad hoc observations.

Lloyd Blankfein seems like Al Capone as compared to Jamie Dimon as Lucky Luciano.



If I were a prosecutor, I would key in on Lloyd because of his edgy, talkative nervousness.

Is there a purpose to this questioning or is it just for show? Are they going to
be interviewing critics of the banking system's actions in this crisis at any point?

Lloyd is fruitful ground. "Money became plentiful, and so people paid less attention to risk." Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ben.
As if anyone except for a Federal Reserve governor would not already understand that relationship.

This is pure theater.

Weekly Gold Chart

1100 is key support. 1180 is key resistance.

Everything else is noise.

Watch the price of silver for any confirmations.
That market is tight, and less politically motivated.

Forecast 2010 - 2015: An Introduction

I am in the midst of preparing a forecast for the next five to ten years for the United States economy, and by extension the world because of the intertwining effects of the dollar reserve currency and US consumption in the global economy. And of course the US position as the world's sole superpower.

(Note: I subsequently decided not to issue a new five year forecast, and instead to take it one year at a time because the current macro five year forecast is still in play thanks to the Fed's delaying tactics and Obama's failure to lead a genuine reform effort. I knew he would be in for a hard time, but his capitulation has been shocking given the rhetoric with which he took office.)

Before I do that, I thought it might be useful to see a recap of my last five year forecast, to set the playing field as it were, as a sort of an introduction. The next forecast will be similar in format and style, but may be a little more complex, because the US, and the world, are at a critical crossroads in history.

The greatest struggle in writing this sort of thing is to keep it brief, to prevent it expanding into a lengthy treatise that examines too many particulars, too many possibilities. Forecasters often succumb to the temptation to throw out many specific predictions and possibilities, in the hopes of 'hits' that will be remembered, with misses forgotten, without giving sufficient weight to the probabilities. In addition, clarity and conciseness are always the challenge in writing non-fiction regarding complex subjects.

Please keep in mind that this forecast was published on my old website at the beginning of 2005, when optimism was running high, the maestro was still on his throne, black swans still an uncommon topic, and the US was in a fresh bull market in stocks with a growing housing bubble that very few would admit, and many would vehemently deny. This forecast is being written in darker hours, when some of the horsemen have already been unleashed.

I have edited out extraneous contemporary detail, and most of the charts which are dated, except for one. I edited out some grammatical errors and awkward phrasing. The timeframe has been 'compartmentalized' to five years, from a more open-ended original, because at the time I wrote in 2005 I did not imagine I would still be at this blogging effort five years later. I have also renumbered the footnotes and eliminated several for the sake of simplicity and relevance.

`Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King`s horses and all the King`s men
Couldn`t put Humpty together again

Forecast 2005 - 2010: The Humpty Dumpty Economy

The current trend in the United States economy is not sustainable. This is a realization that will penetrate the national consciousness slowly and unevenly...Things rarely reach a turning point when we expect it. A true sea change is slow to permeate the mentality of most people, because our experience is that what happened yesterday will happen again tomorrow, and a sea change occurs gradually and incrementally. We forget what happened even a few years ago. Predictions of a continuance of recent trends are the common currency of most rational pundits.

So instead, let us pursue the contrarian side of the discussion, and suggest that although we cannot predict exactly what will happen this particular year because of the wide range of exogenous variables and the inherently unpredictable progression of change, there may be certain things to look for, certain wobbles and warnings in the economy, that may prove fortunate to the observant. This is more difficult than it sounds in practice, because usually and customarily fortune frequently favors the trend followers, and enriches those who blindly plunge forward in blissful ignorance, because by definition normal is what usually occurs.

However, and this is a historically common notion that has been nearly forgotten by our generation, we have the ability to act in such a way so as to make the improbable more likely to occur, to tempt fate by our actions.

For example, there is a certain probability of incurring an automobile accident in the normal course of our daily activities. High risk behaviors, such as speeding excessively or drinking, increase the likelihood of an accident. If one engages in high risk activity, and nothing unusual happens, we become emboldened and think that since we were able to drink moderately and drive last month, so we can drink and drive this month and thereafter. Perhaps next month we drink a little more for an indulgence, and again nothing happens. This cycle continues until something changes our behavior, or simply ends when we literally hit the wall.

It would be my contention that the US is like such a driver, and we have been economically tempting fate with increasingly risky behaviors. We are persuaded that there is almost nothing we can do, almost nothing that can happen, that is beyond our immediate control. It is the propensity for people to increase and repeat what they have been doing over time, to tempt fate through repeated and increasingly risky behavior, and to forget the possibility of a sequence of unfortunate events if you will, that gives rise to memorable events in history.

Predicting the failure of a complex system is not easy. One can examine it as a whole, and determine that it will fail, and often calculate what must change in order to allow the system to function more reliably, but it is beyond our power to calculate exactly how it will fail, and consequently when it will fail. This does not invalidate the observation that the system will ultimately fail. It merely underscores unpredictability of timing a failure with the degrees of separation inherent in a calculation with a large number of exogenous variables. It is not easy to predict exactly when a chronic DWI will demolish their automobile, but it remains relatively predictable to say that they will do so as long as they maintain their current mode of behavior.

The current economy of the United State is such a complex system. Since 1971 it has been a purely fiat currency, when Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard and the Bretton Woods agreement, establishing the current monetary environment with the US dollar as the basis of world banking reserves.

There are many milestones in the progression of our current economy, and several turning points where we might have modified our behavior to change the probable progression of events. One of the underlying factors in this drama is the long tenure of Alan Greenspan (1) who, on September 1, 1971, became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors remaining in that position when President Ford was replaced by Jimmy Carter in January, 1977. He was later appointed to the Chairmanship of the Federal Reserve by Ronald Reagan on August 11, 1987.

With the great market break of October, 1987 Chairman Greenspan established his modus operandi of avoiding any economic pain by the generous applications of liquidity ahead of a crisis, and so it has been for his five terms as Fed Chairman: not acting alone, but in concert with ambitious politicians to debase the money supply of the United States to serve the purposes of power, even to the extent of allowing one of the greatest stock market bubbles since 1929 to imperil the financial system. (2) We now know that this is due to extreme risk aversion whenever the ability to forego problems presents itself, and shift the responsibility for the crisis somewhere else, preferring to clean the mess up after the fact rather than to take responsibility for it. (3)

This is an important point, because it indicates that the probability that the Fed will do anything proactive to attend to our current situation and avoid another bubble and subsequent collapse are so remote as to be almost improbable while Chairman Greenspan is in office. We have also learned that the Fed has no credibility with regard to the recognition of bubbles, and their assertion that they cannot know when one exists or what to do about it when one does occur.

Therefore, we must look to some precipitating event to cause our increasing unstable financial system to hit the wall, some situation where events conspire to potentially change the existing equilibrium of the system, to such an extent that they cause the system to change course. These we will call tipping points.

Tipping Points

There are four major types of tipping points that we may confront in 2005 - 2010:

o Demand: a break in the level of consumption in the US caused by the
unwillingness or inability of households to incur further debt to support
consumption beyond real wage growth

o Supply: a major disruption in the supply of an essential commodity like
energy, food, or raw materials, or even the realization that a major
commodity is in shorter supply than expected, such as silver or oil.

o Monetary: an unwillingness of foreign central banks to continue to
monetize the US trade deficit and budget deficit through the recycling of
their trade surplus into US debt securities.

o Systemic failure: the failure of a major counter party that threatens the
US financial system, particularly in the hugely leveraged derivatives
market. This might also include a major political failure such as a terror
attack, assassination, war, scandal that impacts the perception of risk in
the financial markets and/or shakes the confidence of investors
precipitating a panic.

The First Horseman: a break in Demand

Housing market sales and foreclosures, consumer consumption and
confidence figures, payrolls and average wages, retail sales.

The consumer is stretched so far that savings has been reduced to virtually zero,
and the growth of new debt particularly in revolving credit and mortgages has
reached alarming levels. At some point the consumers may just run out of the
desire to keep assuming additional risk on their balance sheets. Since our GDP
is so heavily driven by consumer consumption at the moment, this in itself is
likely to trigger a serious decline in economic growth. It will not occur uniformly,
but from the lowest strata up of consumers by annual disposable income.

The Second Horseman: A break in Supply

The availability of key resources including energy, food, and metals.

Although there is significant excess capacity in the global supply chain by sector,
especially in consumer goods, IT products, and financial services, there are in
fact some very tight supply situations in some key resources including crude oil,
natural gas, some foodstuffs, and industrial metals. These occur periodically when some
natural disaster or terror event disturbs the supply chain. In some cases these supply gaps are
the result of years of economic distortion and malinvestment.

The Third Horseman: A fatal break in Monetary System

The current monetary system is overly simplistic, historically unique, and unsustainable.

The US runs unsustainable trade and budget deficits as a result of excessive
consumption with no savings, and some central banks and the Fed are
monetizing that debt into dollar financial assets. When it stops working a
major market dislocation is inevitable. The limiting factor on this is the
value of the dollar and central banks’ willingness to support and accept it.

The Fourth Horseman: Systemic Failure

Major counterparty failures will prevent the system from restarting smoothly...

The forecast for the next five years (2010-2015) will follow at a subsequent time, but will follow a similar format and themes.

Looking this forecast over, there is very little I would change, except to further emphasize the huge number of exogenous variables and the immense difficulty in predicting specific events and timeframes. If you watch the forecasting video from Bruce Bueno de Mesquita you will understand why. Since I am using a personal and smaller scale variant of game theory the parallels are valid.

In this case there is an enormous exogenous event within the forecast period that is still not gaining enough attention, the potential for a "Y2K" type phenomenon developing with regard to December 2012. This may not come to pass, but there is a possibility that it will, and it could be a more significant modifying factor. We are not implying that the world will end, but rather, like Y2K, an event that does not occur will cause many changes in behaviour that effect economic outcomes.

The title of the 2005 forecast is The Humpty Dumpty Economy. The tentative title of the 2010 forecast is Revelations not in the sense of end times, but of realizations, a growing awareness, and surprising disclosures. It should be done by the end of March, depending on how I choose to limit its scope. The temptation to lay it aside recurs.

________________________
Footnotes (renumbered from the original due to editing)

(1) One can hardly hold Alan Greenspan solely responsible for our current economic dilemma. In his book Six Crises, Richard Nixon asserts that the Fed had given the election to John F. Kennedy by tightening monetary policy in 1959 when he ran for election as the Republican candidate. In 1968 he appointed his aide Arthur Burns as Chairman of the Federal Reserve in order to ensure there was no repetition.

Burns provided stimulus so that inflation, which had been 2 percent or less for the 1960’s jumped to 6.2 percent in 1969. Although Fed tightening brought inflation down to 5.6 percent in 1970, Nixon pressured Burns and the spigots were opened in time for his re-election campaign in 1971, ensuring a boom and a bust in 1972-1974. It was Burns who had recommended Greenspan to the Council of Economic Advisors in 1971, in part because Greenspan has always been amenable to bending principle to political expediency.

In that sense Greenspan is more a symptom of the breakdown of the separation of powers and the rise of the imperial presidency that began with Johnson and reached its maturity under Nixon. Greenspan has been in place to serve whatever president has been in power since his accession to the Fed Chairmanship. This would not be a problem if he did not hold the trust, the power and responsibility to check an ambitious political regime from debasing the currency for its own short term purposes. This breakdown of the checks and balances is viewed by some as the inevitable temptation and result of a fiat currency.

(2) "As in the United States in the late 1920s and Japan in the late 1980s, the case for a central bank ultimately to burst that bubble becomes overwhelming," Lindsey added. "I recognize that there is a stock market bubble problem at this point…" Greenspan replied. FOMC minutes, September 24, 1996.

(3) ”Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday that Fed policy-makers could not have deflated the stock market bubble that emerged in the late 1990s without raising interest rates to such high levels that it would have pushed the United States into a severe recession... Greenspan, who famously warned in December 1996 that investors could be in the grips of "irrational exuberance," said it was very difficult for policy-makers to know when a stock market bubble was developing.” AP Washington August 30, 2002

Financial Coup d'Etat: A Simple, Credible Explanation of What Happened (and Some Ideas About How to Fix It)

Here is an excerpt from the transcript of Bill Moyer's Journal of January 8, 2010.

"Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry's compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion. And despite windfall profits, the banks will claim almost $80 billion in tax deductions. And nearly $20 billion of those deductions will go to just three institutions — Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.

Ah, yes — Goldman Sachs, that paragon of profit and probity — which bet big on the housing bubble and when it popped — presto! — converted itself from an investment firm into a bank so it could get your bailout money. Now consider this: in 2008, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of just one percent. I'm not making that up — one percent! — while their CEO Lloyd Blankfein pulled down over $40 million. That's God's work, if you can get it. And, believe me, Wall Street bankers know how to get it..."

You can read the full transcript, and watch the video of his show here.

The links for part two and his summary are in the title bar above the video screen.

If you find this to be worthwhile, send a copy of this to everyone you know who might be interested in this.

Obama Administration Wants to Annuitize 401k's and IRA's - Mandatory "R Bonds"

As a rule of thumb, the worst possible time to convert lump sum savings into a fixed income annuity would be when interest rates are historically low.

Although products may vary, this is roughly equivalent to buying long term bonds at a time when interest rates are likely to increase, substantially reducing your principal in real terms, and eroding your fixed returns through inflation.

For some reason the Obama Administration is promoting the idea now that there should be some encouragement for Americans to start converting their 401K's and IRA's into annuities, to provide themselves with lifetime income.

The effort is being spear-headed by Mark Iwry of the Treasury and Phyllis Borzi of the Department of Labor. Here is a paper written on the subject by Mark Iwry when he was at the Brookings Institution.

The essence of this paper is that distributions from IRA's and 401K's would automatically be rolled into an annuity providing a monthly income by default.

This concept is known on the Street as the handling fees for meager returns pork barrel pigfest. The Fed likes it because they will undoubtedly get a two year rolling chunk of the people's retirement cash to play with.

Perhaps just rolling those 401K's and IRA's into Social Security or the Long Bond would be what they have in mind. Somehow the panacea of TIPS with inflation defined by the government sounds probable. The drawback perhaps is that this would not generate the highest recurring fees for Wall Street and the FIRE sector, which have to be eyeing that 'cash on the sidelines' hungrily.

How about Patriot Bonds that are fully invested in Mortgage Debt formerly owned by the Fed, with some tranches of Commercial Real Estate to add some zest to the recipe? The Treasury can give this option a small tax break, which can be largely consumed by Wall Street fees and mispricing of risk returns.

And I thought that Greenspan's advice for homeowners to step into ARMs into the knee of the housing bubble was foul.

Here's a modest proposal. Raise the amount of losses from investments that can be deducted from income in one year from $3,000 to $20,000 for individuals and $40,000 filing jointly so mom and pop can clean up their balance sheets. And if they really want to jump start the economy, declare a tax and penalty exemption on the first $150,000 that an individual can withdraw from their IRA or 401K in 2010.

And for God's sake fix the Alternative Minimum Tax levels.

Does it seems as though I have barely given this annuitization effort a chance, a fair hearing, the benefit of the doubt, improperly assumed it might not have the best intentions of the American public at heart?

Are you serious? After Healthcare Reform and TARP? These people in Washington and Wall Street have no shame, much less good intentions, common sense, or a conscience. They are strangling the real economy, slowly but surely.

My model for thinking about this annuitization is that the government wishes to appropriate your savings for a 2.0% return, ex fees and mispriced risk and inflation, as a source of funding for the bailouts of an oversized and insolvent FIRE sector (like AIG) and the imploding pretensions of a global financial elite.

"Officials in the Obama administration are moving quickly to develop the investment infrastructure behind the president’s proposal for mandatory automatic enrollment in individual retirement accounts, which could be supported by the creation of Treasury-issued retirement bonds

J. Mark Iwry, deputy assistant secretary for retirement and health policy at the Department of the Treasury, said that administration officials are exploring some “conservative” options for investing the assets of 78 million Americans that he estimates could be automatically en¬rolled in this “universal” workplace retirement system.

He said that officials have discussed the possibility of making a low-risk life-cycle or target date fund the default investment option for these auto-IRAs, which would be mandatory for employers if they don’t offer a retirement plan to their workers.

But there is also a chance that they could rely on a new form of bond — an “R bond” — as the basic building block for the auto-IRA, Mr. Iwry said in addressing reporters at the Treasury Department in Washington last week.

Administration officials are discussing the exact details of these R bonds, such as their interest rates, maturities and minimums, he noted. These bonds ideally would provide individuals with a source of secure, steady returns that would protect their initial investments."

Administration Explores R Bond For Retirement Accounts - Investment News 7 June 2009

Why have a separate "R Bond" instead of those government bonds they have now called 'Treasuries?' And why have a mandatory universal retirement system when you have this thing called 'Social Security?' Think about it. Sounds like the kind of preparations governments make for things like 'new dollars' after a selective default.

Instead of "Yes We Can" the slogan for the Obama Administration should be "Over One Million Fat Cats Served." And the only difference in the Republicans is the breed of the fat cats whose desires they seek to fulfill. The public has lost its advocacy in Washington, and therefore the integrity of the democratic republic is in peril.

The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and the economy brought back into balance, before there can be a sustained recovery.

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bloomberg
Retiree Annuities May Be Promoted by Obama Aides
By Theo Francis

The government is looking at ways to promote the conversion of 401(k)s and IRAs into steady payment streams after a significant decline in plan balances

(Bloomberg) — The Obama administration is weighing how the government can encourage workers to turn their savings into guaranteed income streams following a collapse in retiree accounts when the stock market plunged.

The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.

Annuities generally guarantee income until the retiree's death, and often that of a surviving spouse as well. They are designed to protect against the risk that retirees outlive their savings, a danger made clear by market losses suffered by older Americans over the last year, David Certner, legislative counsel for AARP, said in an interview.

"There's a real desire on a lot of people's parts to try to encourage something other than just rolling over a lump sum, to make sure this money will actually last a lifetime," said Certner, legislative counsel for Washington-based AARP, the biggest U.S. advocacy group for retirees.

Promoting annuities may benefit companies that provide them through employers, including ING Groep NV (INGA:NA) and Prudential Financial Inc. (PRU), or sell them directly to individuals, such as American International Group Inc. (AIG), the insurer that has received $182.3 billion in government aid...

Positive Non-Farm Payrolls Number Baked Into Stock Prices?

Everyone appears to be expecting a big upside surprise in the jobs report tomorrow.

Unless its quite a surprise they might even sell the news.

This is a thin market, and probably manipulated as part of a reflationary effort.

Seems like gambling to take much of a position ahead of the release..

Speaking of gambling, here is Simon Johnson on why The Worst Is Yet to Come.

There Are Now More Government Employees than Goods-Producing Workers in the US

For the first time there are decidedly more government employees than goods-producing (manufacturing) employees in the US according to the Department of Labor.



This chart is from The Mess That Greenspan Made here.

It is interesting to think about this in terms of health care, pension plans, job security, employee loyalty, and so forth.

The reason for this is not the growth of government jobs but rather the drastic shrinkage in US based manufacturing employment while government employment remains resilient. As a percent of the population, the number of government employees is now about 9% which is slightly lower than it was in the 1970's.

The Service sector dominates. There is a nice chart showing goods-producing, government, service, and non-employed percentages from EconomPicData here.

US corporations have been offshoring jobs for many years, in part due to the structural problems of benefits and environmental costs in a developed nation and Asian mercantilism. Some of this transfer of employee is due to natural market forces, but a great deal of it is a result of purposeful national policy and trade practices such as currency pegs, for example.

As Adam Smith observed in Wealth of Nations (1776):

"To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising ... customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers."

In this case if one substitutes "kleptocrats" for "shopkeepers" and "dollar debt slaves" for "customers" then the quotation may fit the current situation in the US and its reserve currency empire quite well. It also helps to explain the steady role of the government bureaucracy in administering this paper empire, as well as the outsized financial sector.

But one underestimates the resilience of a free people at their peril, as did Napoleon dismissing the English, echoing Smith, "L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers," prior, of course, to his Waterloo in June, 1815.

December 2009 Non-Farm Payrolls Report Preview and Forecast

As you may know, and as we suggested the other day, the ADP report, based on payroll data from American business, showed a loss of 84,000 jobs in December, versus expectations of a loss of only 75,000 jobs.

We also suggested that this Friday's US Non-Farm Payroll Report will be a positive surprise, at least 10,000 or so jobs to the good. Here are the details.

The Imaginary Jobs component, also known as the Bureau of Labor Statistics Birth-Death Model, will contribute approximately 72,000 jobs allegedly created by small businesses with less credible evidence than a Bigfoot or an Elvis sighting.

Not that they are always positive. Each January there is an enormous job loss shown here, in the neighborhood of about 350,000 jobs. The reason they do this is because the seasonal adjustment factor is so huge in January that this imaginary jobs number does not matter, since it is subtracted (and added) from the numbers prior to the seasonal adjustment.

We can expect this model to continue to show positive annual jobs growth until the End of Days, and perhaps longer than that if there is fireproof paper in the afterlife.



The 'headline jobs number' which is the Seasonally Adjusted Number will be a positive 58,000 jobs, and provide much joy and exultation in Washington and on Wall Street. Pundits like Paul Krugman will caution that the economy is still fragile and a second stimulus bill will be required to insure these positive gains.



What is the basis for these projected numbers? The same basis used by the BLS - nothing. At least nothing connected with the real world. These are the numbers that bureaucrats might mindlessly crank out in response to the desire of their bosses for certain targets, a phenomenon well understood by most corporate financial staffs.

We drew the trendline on that chart earlier this year, assuming that the government would wish to show a steady job increase with a positive number by December, or at least January. So far we have not been disappointed, although there have been quite a few revisions along the way.

There will also be revisions this time again, with some jobs added and borrowed from prior months to help make this latest number seem believable.



So, let's see how it really turns out. Am I being too cynical? I used to spend many hours estimating these numbers and potential targets, but this month I decided to go with the trends. Not trends in job growth, but trends in the general corruption of nearly all financial and economic data in the US, from the government, the banks, and the kleptocracy.

Perhaps the numbers will be realistic and credible this time, and I can be pleasantly surprised.

And perhaps the Obama Administration will begin to deliver the promised, genuine financial reforms.

Three Charts: Gold, Silver, Dollar

It will be interesting to see how the Fed and Treasury juggle the various markets that do not play well together, being stocks, dollar, and Treasuries, and of course those nasty reminders of dollar mortality, gold and silver. Although the ADP report tomorrow may be a bit light, we think the BLS will do its duty and show us a jobs positive report on Friday.

Gold Daily

The objective for gold is obviously to break back above its 40 day moving average, and take out 1140. The bear are defending this area with a vengance, shorting every rally.



Silver Daily

If silver can take out 18.40 it's off to the races and a new high.



US Dollar (DX) Daily

The dollar needs to take out 78.50 to label this rally as more than a dead cat bounce and keep going. If it takes out 77 and the moving average to the downside then we are looking at a key support test at 76.




US Dollar Commitments of Traders

Dollar is severely overbought by the funds and specs.



h/t jsmineset for the COT dollar chart

Whitney Cuts Goldman Sachs Earnings Estimate

This took a bit of the edge off the rally led by financials and tech today.

Goldman is a strong bellwether for the US financial markets, since they make most of their earnings by ravaging all participants in them. While the fish can still swim, so the squid can feed. So like it or not, as Goldman goes, so the US equity market probably goes, at least in the short term.

It will take all their resources to keep the winning streak intact.

Barrons
GS: Whitney Cuts Q4, ‘10 Estimate
By Tiernan Ray

Joining the string of Goldman Sachs (GS) estimate cuts, Meredith Whitney Advisory Group today lowered its EPS estimate for Q4 from $6 to $5.50, though that’s still above the $5.42 average estimate.

For this year, Whitney lowered her estimate to $19.20 from $19.65, though that’s above the average $18.78 estimate.Previously: GS: Pali Cuts Estimates on TradingJoining the string of Goldman Sachs (GS) estimate cuts, Meredith Whitney Advisory Group today lowered the EPS estimate for Goldman’s Q4 from $6 to $5.50, though that’s still above the $5.42 average estimate.

For this year, Whitney lowered her estimate to $19.20 from $19.65, though that’s above the average $18.78 estimate.

Class Warfare American Style

Matt Taibbi's reaction to the ZeroHedge story with regard to Turbo Tim's lifting of the government support on Christmas Eve for the GSE's was exactly my own. You can read it in its entirety here.

What he does not overtly say is that this is class warfare, and it is becoming worse in the US than at any time since the 1930's. And the outcome of this will be a fundamental test of the US commitment to its republic.

The media stokes the viewing public into emotionally-based and virulently distracting arguments about liberal versus conservative, while the gentried class skins them all alive.

One only has to watch the 'news shows' on American television to see the lack of real content and discussion, with diametrically opposed 'strategists' hurling sound bytes at each other with all the depth of a schoolyard standoff.

It is comfortable to retreat into an 'us versus them' view of the world, and the noble class in the States is all too ready to facilitate that appeal to the darker emotions. People know deep down that it is a scam, and believe that it is easier to go along and get yours while you can, than actually attempting to change a system grown corrupt in an aging empire.

This explains more than one might imagine. Why do the economists continually excuse outrageously unsustainable economic behaviour and financial systems that are as productive as games of chance? Why do some media outlets obviously take sides and pander to the worst biases in their viewers, supplying them with easy reflexive answers to any suggestion that something might actually be wrong? Why do adult people fall for this and regress to childish name calling so readily?

It is because they are afraid. They know the system is broken, that the country is in for hard times, and that the work of reform is going to be difficult and painful. It is so easy to adopt whatever red or blue meme, whomever you think is going to deliver undeserved wealth to you, or at least safety and position. As always look for a fallguy, some identifiable and out of favor group. The search for scapegoats may be be violent.

At turning points such as these, when the time is right, a 'great man' will stand up and many will follow. Who will it be, and what principals and principles will they represent? Obama was such a one, but he is obviously like the character of Robert the Bruce in the movie Braveheart, who chooses practically and cynically to support the nobles. He is finished; no one will follow him as his betrayal becomes too painfully obvious. Will it be the banal fascist with the simplistic, easy answers, a leftist with retribution to offer, or a real 'braveheart' who has nothing more to offer than the hardship of freedom?" 

America is not alone in this. The UK is further along the path. We may see the first expression of the future of the West in London than in Washington. Only the future will tell.

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." Warren Buffett New York Times, November 26, 2006.

"The class warfare is over -- we lost. I want to make that announcement today. Working people lost. The middle class lost." Dennis Kucinich, 18 December 2009

And in the short term there will be quite a bit of jostling at the middle of the ladder, by those who fancy themselves, or their children, suited for the new nobility and so seek to perpetuate the status quo, with a lot of kicking and dog eat dog going on at the lower levels as the ladder shortens, trying to knock the immigrant, the less connected, off into the abyss, to feed the beast.

Out of all of this will come something different, and most likely something unexpected. Its an old story, one that replays over and over. The remedy is sound reason and the Constitution, but these forces have been in retreat for the past ten years at least. Reform and justice have few friends while the looting of a generation is in progress.

"For what we’ve learned in the last few years as one scandal after another spilled onto the front pages is that the bubble economies of the last two decades were not merely monstrous Ponzi schemes that destroyed trillions in wealth while making a small handful of people rich. They were also a profound expression of the fundamentally criminal nature of our political system, in which state power/largess and the private pursuit of (mostly short-term) profit were brilliantly fused in a kind of ongoing theft scheme that sought to instant-cannibalize all the wealth America had stored up during its postwar glory, in the process keeping politicians in office and bankers in beach homes while continually moving the increasingly inevitable disaster to the future.

That is a terrible story and it is also sort of a taboo story, since we don’t really have a system of media now that is willing or even able to digest that dark and complicated truth. Instead, our media — which has always been at best an inadvertent accomplice to these messes — is basically set up to take every revelation about the underlying truth and split it down the middle, feeding half to one side of the political spectrum and one half to the other, where the actual point is then burned up in the useless smoke of a blame game.

The essentially complicit nature of the two ruling political parties was in this way covered up for decades, as the crimes of the Democrats were greedily consumed as entertainment by the Limbaugh crowd while the crimes of the Bushies became hot-selling t-shirts and bumper stickers for the Air America listenership. The abiding mutual hatred the red/blue groups shared consistently prevented any kind of collective realization about the structure of the overall scheme...

Everyone had a hand in the bubble, from the congressmen who killed regulatory initiatives to the regulators who snoozed at the wheel to the GSEs to the Fed to the banks to the ratings agencies to the lenders. I don’t think it’s really controversial to say that, but it does seem like there’s an argument brewing about what that across-the-board complicity means.

My own personal feeling is that our recent bubbles weren’t much different than pyramid scams and lotteries; they’re the handiwork of an essentially regressive and deeply cynical political organization that systematically hoovers up taxes and investment money mainly from middle-class suckers, where it eventually gets eaten in short-term cashouts and mostly blown on sports cars and tropical vacations and eye jobs for the trophy wives of Wall Street executives. Crackonomics: take literally all the spare money from four square city blocks and turn it into one tricked-out Escalade.

For me the basic dynamic of the mortgage bubble is some Ivy League dickwad hawking a billion dollars of securitized subprime mortgages to a pension fund, and then Hobie-sailing off into the sunset with a bonus after they all blow up. Of course my seeing it that way might have a lot to do with my own personal psychological prejudices, and I get that some other person with different hangups might choose to focus on Barney Frank deciding to “roll the dice on home ownership” with the GSEs...

This GSE story is a big one, but if it gets used as a path back to a “The Market Reacted Rationally” version of history, we’re screwed. It has to be looked at as an important part of a diabolical whole, a symbiotic scheme in which the banks and the state were irreversibly intertwined in an enterprise that on both sides was never about market economics, but crime. Because otherwise… the diversionary notion that one side or the other is wholly to blame is part of what makes the whole scam possible..."

Why would you care? Why be concerned about the other? Because when the time comes, there may be no place to hide. Madness makes few rational distinctions between what is and is not worth preserving. Time to listen to the survivors, and not imagine that this time it will be different.

"First they came for the intellectuals, and I did not speak out—because I was not a intellectual;
Then they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-because i was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a working man;
Then they came for the disabled, and I did not speak out—because I was not disabled;
Then they came for the gypsies, and I did not speak out—because I was not a gypsy;
Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out—because I was a Protestant;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me —
and there was no one left to speak out for me."

Why Was There No Canadian Housing Bust? The US Fed Says That They Were Probably Just Lucky Except...

This paper from the Cleveland Fed, which used to shine under the governorship of Jerry Jordan, suggests several reasons why there was no significant housing bust in Canada. Interesting that after each politically correct reason stated, there is an 'oh-by- the-way' in addition that cuts to the heart of the problem.

The Canadians were probably just lucky, according to the Fed, except they actually did things to stem the growth of off-balance-sheet securitization and tightened lending standards earlier on while the US Fed was cheerleading banking speculation and the growing housing bubble even to the point of its collapse.

Chairman Ben struck the party line in a recent speech, blaming the regulators. But in fact the Fed had a significant role to play in both regulation, monetary policy, and in the verbage they put out attacking regulation of banks and enabling their off-balance-sheet vehicles and derivatives speculation at every turn.

Yes, Fannie and Freddie played a significant role in the US. But the Fed set the tone for banking regulation and they not only did not take away the punch bowl, they spiked it with high grain alcohol. The Fed was the 'cop on the beat' and they looked the other way. And they still are.

The Wall Street banks bought the White House, the Congress, and already owned the Fed. It was a failure of stewardship in the US that allowed the bubble then, and the continuing abuses on Wall Street today. And while the US Fed is not the sole perpetrator, it was their duty as the "independent regulator" to take away the punch bowl. And they never did it. And have not done it yet.

From the charts, it is obvious that there is a bubble in Canadian housing, not of the dimensions of the US, but likely a bubble nonetheless. The bubble is partly due to Canada's heavy export involvement with the US, and a certain interdependency implied with the devaluing dollar, and a desire to keep the loon at par with the dollar. The key difference between the nature of their bubble is that it is not founded on the fraudulent securitization of mortgages held by their commercial banks.

Will the Canadian housing bubble 'pop' or will the Canadians be able to grow out of it gracefully? That is not quite the issue being addressed here. Certainly the Canadian monetary authority and regulators are not exemplary, but certainly less inept then the US Fed, at least so far.

Addendum: Canadian readers are quite concerned about the actions of the Harper government and the CMHC, which is similar to a Canadian version of Fannie Mae apparently. CMHC Bubble 100% Made in Canada Several were kind enough to write in and say that Canadian housing is still overpriced relative to rents, and that the debt held by the CMHC is likely to end in tears at some point. I think the chart of home prices indicates that, but it appears that a gradual decline in activity and pricing is possible, which is the conclusion I believe that the Fed was assuming in their paper. Canadian readers of this blog are not so sanguine, and believe that a collapse will happen.

That is always a possibility. It would take considerably more analysis on my part to determine the size of the debt relative to its servicing, and factor in the possible steps that the government might take to manage that debt relative to homeowners.

But the point I think the Cleveland Fed writer makes is not entirely lost here. So far Canada is holding up rather well. It was a characteristic that interested me because Canada also held up remarkably better than the US during the Great Depression, and the people suffered much less, largely because their banking system was more conservative than the US.

It will be interesting to see how the Canadians deal with this issue going forward. Perhaps they really have just been lucky, and are heading towards a similar fate. But one thing remains that at least for now they have many more policy options than the US, which was taken down hard by its banks, and their propensity to leverage up, mismark risk, and pack it into their balance sheets recklessly. Whether they do the right things now is another matter again.

"Why Was the Subprime Market in Canada Smaller?

Given the key role played by the “subprime” market, the question is why the Canadian subprime market was both smaller and levels of securitization were lower than in the U.S. While it is difficult to disentangle the reasons why Canada avoided the subprime boom, some factors can be identified that may have contributed to the differences in the Canadian and U.S. subprime markets.

Perhaps the simplest story is that Canada was “lucky” to be a late adopter of U.S. innovations rather than an innovator in mortgage finance. While the subprime share of the Canadian market was small, it was growing rapidly prior to the onset of the U.S. subprime crisis. In response to the U.S. crisis, some subprime lenders exited the Canadian market due to difficulties in securing funding. In addition, the Canadian government moved in July 2008 to tighten the standards for mortgage insurance required for high LTV loans originated by federally regulated financial institutions. This further limited the ability of Canadian banks to directly offer subprime-type products to borrowers. (That's quite an oh-by-the-way - Jesse)

There are also several institutional details that played a role. The Canadian market lacks a counterpart to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, both of which played a significant role in the growth of securitization in the U.S. In addition, bank capital regulation in Canada treats off-balance sheet vehicles more strictly than the U.S., and the stricter treatment reduces the incentive for Canadian banks to move mortgage loans to off-balance sheet vehicles. (Another significant oh-by-the-way - Jesse)

Finally, as noted above, the fact that the government-mandated mortgage insurance for high LTV loans issued by Canadian banks effectively made it impossible for banks to offer certain subprime products. This likely slowed the growth of the subprime market in Canada, as nonbank intermediaries had to organically grow origination networks.

A Challenge for Policymakers

The Canada-U.S. comparison suggests the low interest rate policy of the central banks in both countries contributed to the housing boom over 2001–2006 and that a relaxation of lending standards in the U.S. was the critical factor in setting the stage for the housing bust. A caveat worth emphasizing, however, is that the Canada-U.S. comparison tells us little about what would have happened if U.S. monetary policy had been tighter earlier. Tighter monetary policy in the early part of the decade may have helped to limit the subprime boom by slowing the rate of house price appreciation over 2002–2006. The Canada-U.S. comparison does, however, highlight the practical challenge facing policymakers in assessing whether a rapid run-up in asset prices is a bubble or a “sustainable” movement in market prices."
Why Didn't Canada's Housing Market Go Bust? - Cleveland Fed

Here is a little more detail on the shenanigans of Tim and Ben by John Hussman.

The banks must be restrained, the financial system reformed, and the economy brought back into balance before there can be a sustained recovery.

Is the US Goverment Preparing the Lifeboats for the Next Financial Disaster?

Zero Hedge has an interesting review of proposed rule changes by the SEC and the Obama Administration which you can read in its entirety here.

Yet new regulations proposed by the administration, and specifically by the ever-incompetent Securities and Exchange Commission, seek to pull one of these three core pillars from the foundation of the entire money market industry, by changing the primary assumptions of the key Money Market Rule 2a-7.

The primary concern seems to be the new ability of money market fund managers to freeze redemptions (withdrawals) of funds at their discretion.

"A key proposal in the overhaul of money market regulation suggests that money market fund managers will have the option to 'suspend redemptions to allow for the orderly liquidation of fund assets.'"

If you have the time, you should sit down and read through the entire essay at ZH, because it is fascinating. I understand that many will not because of the length and density of the piece, which is really not all that bad, and fairly well written as all of their pieces tend to be. I am not so adverse to some of the other changes in the MMFs such as the tightening of durations, but that is more a quibble.

One also has to wonder if and when the government will begin to more aggressively manage the access of private citizens to their 401K's and IRA's and other forms of savings. Or is it just sufficient to manage the things that one might hold in them. Hard to say.

Now that the government will be forcing Americans to buy private health insurance (and presumably use it to prevent certain trasmittable diseases for the public good as your private health insurer will have your records) where will they stop? What about life insurance, long term disability insurance, and retirement plans? How about psychological counseling and sensitivity training for social malcontents? "A gram is better than a damn."

Here is the concluding paragraph from this essay and I wanted to highlight it here because otherwise it will be overlooked by many who should read and understand it. The conclusions that the author draws about WHY the changes are being made are more important perhaps than the changes themselves. Or at least to me, because I have very little money in any US money market fund, and even that is 100% short term Treasuries. The fraud and mispricing of risk in the US financial system has become pervasive and epidemic, such that a good stiff headwind could have taken it all down, and because of a lack of serious reform, still can. Rather than fixing potential causes of the next disaster, the Obama Administration seems content to block the escape routes and issue priority passes to the big Wall Street banks and a favored few.

"At this point it is without doubt that even the government understands that when things turn sour, and they will, the run on the bank will be unavoidable: their solution - prevent money from being dispensed, when that moment comes. The thing about crises, be they liquidity, solvency, or plain-vanilla, is that "price discovery" occurs all at once, and at the very same time. And all too often, investors "discover" they were lied to, as the emperor, in any fiat system, always has no clothes.

Just like in September 2008, when the banks were forced to look at each-others' balance sheet and realize that there are no real assets on the left backing up the liabilities on the right, so the moment of enlightenment occurs are the most importune time: just ask Hank Paulson. Had he known his action of beefing up Goldman's FICC trading axes would have resulted in the "Ice-Nine'ing" (to borrow a Mark Pittman term) of money markets, who knows- maybe Lehman would have still been alive. Perhaps risking the cash access of 20% of US households and 80% of companies was not worth the few extra zeroes in Goldman's EPS. But we will never know.

What we will know, is that now i) the government is all too aware that the market has become one huge ponzi, and that all investment vehicles, even the safest ones, are subject to bank runs, and ii) that said bank runs, will occur. It is only a matter of time. And just as the president told everyone directly to buy the market on March 3, so the SEC, the Group of 30, and Barney Frank are telling us all, much less directly, to get the hell out of Dodge. Alternatively, the game of "last fool in", holding the burning hot potato, can continue indefinitely, until such time as the marginal utility of each and every dollar printed by Ben Bernanke is zero."
This Is the Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied - ZeroHedge

Stand your ground and wait. All is well. Someone has to take the big hit while the important people are transported to safety.

The only constraint on the Fed's printing money is the acceptability (marginal value) of the Bond and the dollar, which is the bond of zero duration. And the people making the decisions about printing and distributing those dollars are more unworthy of holding such power than you might imagine, even in your lowest expectations.

And if, even now, you do not 'get this' then the next ten years could be particularly disappointing.