[Geof]

Hey 97T (or whoever), why do you think that the US Dollar is doing so well considering what is happening? .....

As a 'whoever' I had commented on this a few posts above and I was just reading some financial pages in a newspaper. The rational I read is that investors are flocking to US Govt bonds simply because they are backed by the largest and what is perceived as the most stable economy in the world.

Read a few posts above and you will see 97T points out that the US Govt can never hope to redeem these bonds so we all better hope that Wily Coyote doesn't look down again.

[NinerSevenTango]

I guess I am a pessimist, and I think the current financial mess is good evidence that humans will not do what is best in the long term, which is why I am a pessimist.

There is a difference between the Great Wall and a Nuclear Waste Depository; on only injures you if you fall off it the other has the potential to maim or kill you invisibly.

I guess I just cannot subscribe to either extreme view of nucelar; panacea or menace. It is the only large long term energy source other than fossil fuels and will have to be used more and more if the world is to avoid energy starvation, but it is going to require some serious compromises such as allocating a waste repository area that is essentially out of bounds forever.

I expect the Great Wall killed a great many more people than nuclear waste ever will.

Nothing is ever really a panacea, is it?

--97T--

[NinerSevenTango]

Hey 97T (or whoever), why do you think that the US Dollar is doing so well considering what is happening? Things are not so good here in Spain but Europe as a whole isn't suffering so badly (yet) and yet you look the 6 month graphs and see that in July the Euro peaked to almost $1.60USD and now it's at $1.34. Even more so when you look at Australia as it's doing remarkably well at this moment compared to the US and Europe and yet their currency follows almost the same trend as the Euro as it ($1.00AUD) peaked at $0.97USD in July and is now at $0.69USD. Check a few other currencies and you'll find the same trend and yet it doesn't make sense considering that all this mess seems to have originated over there (no, I'm not laying blame here) and you seem to be, and probably will be, in the thick of it for some time to come. I'm getting something from China at the moment (don't flame me for it) and the company I'm dealing with want to be paid in USD also.

If one understood the logic of all this they would have bought USD back in July then they would have made a killing when the USA went into a major economic crisis and miraculously their dollar goes in the opposite direction to what I would have predicted. I guess that's why I'm not rich.

You are comparing the dollar's 'strength' to other fiat currencies, all of which are having their own time of it. Right now the dollar is rallying versus other currencies and even some hard assets because there is a flight to the perceived safety of U.S. T-Bills as stock markets around the world unwind (that's just my opinion, the press will tell you different). It will be very interesting indeed to watch the gyrations when the world figures out that those things are going to be paid off in devalued dollars. That's when people will start unloading those and fleeing for euros, gold, whatever else they can buy. The trickle could turn into a torrent and a flood within hours, and that's the day hyperinflation shows up, which is really a collapse of the currency. And many other currencies could follow it into the toilet.

Being a currency speculator can be a very dicey business.

Here's a few interesting tidbits:


Total Fed Credit is the measure of the amount of money created out of thin air and spent, which U.S. citizens will be taxed to pay back to the corrupt privately owned Fed by creating real goods. With interest laid on top, of course.

Greenspan's swelling of total Fed credit at a measly $10 Billion per month for years and years gave us the bubbles in housing, stocks, bonds, derivatives, and government.

Last week, total Fed credit increased by $103.6 Billion. In one week.

Non-borrowed reserves in banks fell to NEGATIVE $363.1 billion.

Free Reserves in those same banks has collapsed to a NEGATIVE $407 billion.

The national debt surged $121 billion last week (last week!) to $10.245 trillion.

The deficit, and inflation, are being run up at historically unprecedented rates to bail out U.S. banks even as their stated reserves fall. They will fall a LOT more because those toxic derivatives are being not talked about so as to hide the true state of their balance sheets. They are trying to draw out the shock, dribble the bad news, to prevent a panic. Which might work.

If you're government or the press, 'deficits don't matter'. If you're a banker anywhere in the world, you face being taken over by government because of deficits, with more deficits to pay for it. Governments around the world are nationalizing or bailing out banks. This is historic, and the economists know what the stakes are and are not talking publicly about it. There will be a whole lot more bailing if they don't want to allow that $1 Quadrillion of inflated derivatives to be liquidated. They don't want it liquidated because the central banks themselves, which caused it, will fail. And if they just print the money, hyperinflation will cause the people of all countries in the world to resort to gold, silver, barter, anything to survive. It's dangerous because when that happens sometimes heads roll for real and governments get overthrown.

Here's Ron Paul on Fox News yesterday, talking about the 'strength' of the dollar:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCiTykzX3ek"]YouTube - Ron Paul on Socialism, Inflationism, and the Death of the Dollar[/ame]

Damn, I wish we could have gotten him more air time during the primary race. I know I tried! He was probably the last hope for America. I hope not, but it doesn't look good.

--97T--

P.S. -- I typed all this out before I saw that Geof had answered it, saying the same thing much more concisely. Thanks, Geof!

P.S. 2 -- I guess you could say that the marriage between governments and central banking has come out of the closet, in all its filthy glory. That's the definition of Fascism, you know.

[NinerSevenTango]

I just had to share this too.

Peter Schiff was the outsider guy they would bring on CNBC once in awhile, so that they could smirk at him as they all declared there was no housing bubble, stocks were going to rise forever, etc. Over a year ago, he told them this would be happening. He predicted it would happen six months or so before it actually did happen.

It's quite amazing that some of the commentators there are starting to see what he is talking about. Heck, maybe they'll even read a few books on the subject.

Anyway, listen to what he says, and let me know what you think ....

Especially the guy from Moody's. Is that Hubris? (The people are too stupid to understand what's going on, so we need to bail out corporations with their future tax money whether they like it or not).

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=890288520&play=1

--97T--

[One of Many]

I just had to share this too.

Peter Schiff was the outsider guy they would bring on CNBC once in awhile, so that they could smirk at him as they all declared there was no housing bubble, stocks were going to rise forever, etc. Over a year ago, he told them this would be happening. He predicted it would happen six months or so before it actually did happen.

It's quite amazing that some of the commentators there are starting to see what he is talking about. Heck, maybe they'll even read a few books on the subject.

Anyway, listen to what he says, and let me know what you think ....

Especially the guy from Moody's. Is that Hubris? (The people are too stupid to understand what's going on, so we need to bail out corporations with their future tax money whether they like it or not).

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=890288520&play=1

--97T--

Fascinating how two educated money men can have such polar opposite historical opinions on how best to let this play out compared to lessons of the past.

I see no safe haven assets that are not being controlled and manipulated to some degree. By observation, the mass defection from losses in the dollar fleeing into the metals markets, only to find metal hoarders dumping their holdings on a price rise, thereby unloading the gun on late comers that will lose twice. Seems somewhat rigged, yet knowledge is power, power retains wealth, and as they say, those with all the wealth have all the power.

I am not looking for power, but I would like to hedge my bets on keeping what I have managed to retain on an equilibrium where ever the dollar true value goes. I am leaning toward value stocks in long term basic needs sectors. Such as farming equipment, Natural gas and other utilities. I suspect these keep pace with economic conditions better than metals markets.

But as a side note: Let's see.......how does that Oz-bonics go?

What yo'll forget'n yo may not need worry'n bout yo finances an'ways. Between the com'n rise of 23 meters and pole flip, and the com'n taxes to fix et al, there won't be any yo pay left to feed yo'selves!

The direct correlation between the disappearance of money and magnetism

DC

[Geof]

97T; Get hold of this week's Economist, the one with the falling globe on the cover; there is quite a good collection of analyses in it.


And an On Topic comment:

Has anyone seen Hansen's response when confronted with the observation that his prediction for an Ice Free Passage in the Arctic in 2008 didn't quite materialise?

Our that from the Canadian Climate Change 'Guru' Suzuki?

[dynosor]

Has anyone seen Hansen's response when confronted with the observation that his prediction for an Ice Free Passage in the Arctic in 2008 didn't quite materialise?

Our that from the Canadian Climate Change 'Guru' Suzuki?

No; please point us to it!

[JetGirl]

ha! stable economy?! sure...*rolls eyes*

[martinw]

Has anyone seen Hansen's response when confronted with the observation that his prediction for an Ice Free Passage in the Arctic in 2008 didn't quite materialise?

Our that from the Canadian Climate Change 'Guru' Suzuki?

Dear Geof,

Come on man, stop holding out on us !

Best wishes,

Martin

[Geof]

Dear Geof,

Come on man, stop holding out on us !

Best wishes,

Martin

I would if I could but I don't have a link.

[handlewanker]

Back to the banks, what yo'all is fergittin' is that yo' just gotta have faith in the system.

Look at it this way, what if yo' favourite bank suddenly closed it's doors and declared itself "a bit short of the ready right now", and to come back next week maybe.

Pretty soon yo' gonna run outta ready cash, and seeing as how the ATM that your bank maintains got a sign that says "gone to lunch or whatever", and the other banks won't divvy up any dosh on your credit card, yo' gonna see that if yo' supported your bank you'd still be in business.

After all is said and done, it's the place where YOU store your money and where YOU borrow the same when you need mo'.

Your bank exists by YOUR borrowing, not by THEIR lending.

Now if you don't have a job and someone from your bank (who wants to make commission by lending to any deadbet arsehole dropout that can put a cross on paper) suggest that you can have as much money as you can wheelbarrow home, then it is YOUR fault when the bank collapses when YOU declare you can't/won't pay the borrowings, especially if you don't have a brass farthing to get repossed to offset the interest that you have ramped up.

So stop wingeing about how desperate times are for the good old boys back in the land of the free and remember that Confucius is reputed to have said, "Man who make rod for his own back cannot complain if he is beaten by it".

The problem is your dear ol' bank has lent the future interest money they thought YOU were going to make for them to other borrowers, and when you welched on the deal they were left high and dry, well that's the gist of it anyway, all your fault dear borrowers, not the banks.

However, there are some arseholes in the banking system that will lend money to a dead man provided the ink on the death certificate isn't dry yet, and thereby lies the problem, opportunists that fleece you by their own flexible rules.

By rights the government only has the money that taxpayers pay to them, but we all know they have the ability as a right to "borrow" money carte blanche without having the ability to guarantee a repayment schedule, especially if it's for national; security or alian attack.

The act of printing money is a fallacy, as it is only a promissary note issued by the bank that authorises you the borrower to buy now and pay later if you can.

Banks don't spend money, borrowers do, and if a bank printed a billion dollars and no one borrowed it, then it may as well be burned for all it's worth.

Geof, we are also encouraged to speak the same language, and those that can't, as opposed to those who won't, are given assistance to enable them to fill in the ballot form for their choice of political leader, otherwise if we don't front up on polling day then we get fined for not doing so. Nothing like a bit of encouragement to get people to conform.

Humanoids need to be controlled, otherwise you have anarchy.

It is a fact that there are NO anarchistic forms of society that have survived for any length of time before a powerfull force rounds them up and submits them to a set of rules that binds them as securely as any chain for the common good.

The animal kingdom is different, in that they have never been subjected to any form of rule and therfore are truly free in their own right.
Ian.

[MrWild]

Handlewanker you write words, but they don't make sense. You use "YOU" as a broad brush to paint everyone the same but it doesn' fit. I've seen the results of blind faith but haven't ever seen a god. I'm not about to have a lot of faith in an institution run by rich men let alone have a blind faith that refuses to look down and see I'm standing on thin air.

How about you borrow the money and try to pay it back. I'll continue to save my pennies and pay cash.

[handlewanker]

Wildy, they don't make sense to you maybe, but if you take the time to read them then just maybe you'll understand.

I only refer to when someone has to borrow money........if you didn't borrow money you wouldn't have banks.

I like banks, someplace to keep my bucks, and when I want to spend my loot, I use my credit card, so convenient, don't have to carry wads of dough around, just a bit of plastic, but you gotta have a bank to support the plastic, like I said, you gotta have faith in the system, no good abusing the system and wingeing about the troubles yo'all got.

Supposing a bank offered you a credit card with an upfront introductory credit offer, no holds barred of five grand, would you take it?

You'd be a bl##dy fool if you did.

The only time you take it is when you apply for it for a specific purpose, and with the wherewithall to pay it back, otherwise your like all the other deadbeat drop out arseholes that think there's no tomorrow.

Nothing works like plastic money.

Try writing a cheque out everytime you want to pay for something, nobody believes you when you say you're good for the dough, but plastic is verified online instantly, no money in the bank? no spendee, simple.
Ian.

[dufas]

Handlewanker you write words, but they don't make sense. You use "YOU" as a broad brush to paint everyone the same but it doesn' fit. I've seen the results of blind faith but haven't ever seen a god. I'm not about to have a lot of faith in an institution run by rich men let alone have a blind faith that refuses to look down and see I'm standing on thin air.

How about you borrow the money and try to pay it back. I'll continue to save my pennies and pay cash.

MrWild....You have to realize that according to Handlewanker, everyone in the US of A is the lowest of the low. He hates with a vengeance anyone from America. There is nothing that you or anyone else can say or do that would get through to his mini-brain. It is impossible for him to post a cogent sentence much less a paragraph. No matter what you write, he will bring up the opposite. In his mind, he is the thing sitting on the top of the mountain looking down on we less worthy beings. Not only is he a waste of your time, he is a waste himself. He has destroyed what might have been a perfectly good human being.. Answering him in anyway just sets his jollys off for him.... His broad brush works constantly overtime to paint everyone the same.. He goes to a pub, gets snorted and feeling sorry for himself, then, while in his drunken stupor, finds his way to the computer to vent his frustration with his life on other posters here. He is an old, lonely, frustrated, angry person and according to the psychiatrists at the medical facility where my wife works, he is a certified loony.

[MrWild]

MrWild....You have to realize <snip> Handlewanker, <snip> is a certified loony.

I've learned my lessons the hard way on pig rasslin. I'll bow out right about here. Thanks for the heads up.

[skippy]

"Try writing a cheque out everytime you want to pay for ......." What are you talking about? Surely there is no land on earth that still has cheques other than bank issued bank cheques as opposed to personal or business cheques (checks for some)

[Kevin Taylor]

Check's I thought we were talking about global warming? I like how the banking industry is more than happy to move your money around for 2.5% or more IE CC sales service charge EFT's Ect. and they think there doing you a favor If you are short in the bank it's 20.00-30.00$ pre check O D charge and there are still places calling me wanting to lend me $$$ on my future credet card sales now who deserves to get hosed The politions wanted every body without a pot or a window to get a 125% value home loan on an inflated price home and then whene the economy goes south they wonder what happened go figure. In the midwest where I call home land is over double the price of 25 year's ago and grain was almost three times up untill the market went into the tank and now I'l bet some of the guy's that bought land at 5,500.00 an acr. wish they haden't I gues the one thing though is that there isen't going to be any more of that made hence realestate. EUFSUVGWdito's EnviromentlyUnfrendlySportutilityvehicleGlobalWarm ing""""Kevin

[NinerSevenTango]

Banks turn your promissory note into legal tender currency, on the spot. The money is created from thin air, and when it is created, it waters down the value of all other currency. Which has the side effect of discouraging savings. Every inflationary economy in history has always driven the savings rate to zero. After which government takes over, reduces reserve ratios to keep the banks going, borrows the money itself, and finally, as the bad effects of inflation strangles productivity, government starts up the printing press and begins printing the money directly.

The long and short of it is that the bank collects interest on money it created without producing any value itself. The interest doesn't exist until it is borrowed into existence. Eventually, productivity falls even as the paper continues to expand. The people who produce lose their jobs, the corporations that serve government (usually military/industrial) survive or grow with ever greater infusions of cash. The banking sector gets sick too, but the government can always change the rules to save them. They can even nationalize the banks.

Government stays in business by paying its employees and contractors with printed money, but fewer and fewer people are producing the real products to back that money. The more they print, the fewer people can keep their jobs producing. So the more they have to print.

The game stays stable as long as the money creation keeps pace with growth in the economy (only stealing our increases in productivity). With productivity in a nosedive and money creation zooming, the result is the vacuuming up of the entire value of the economy, to be consumed by recipients of government checks.

At the end of the game, the banks and ultimately the government end up with all the cash and title to all the property, too.

It's a fairly simple ruse. It's time the people woke up to it.

What is money, really?

"Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives. Money is not merely a tool of exchange: much more importantly, it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production. To fulfill this requirement, money has to be some material commodity which is imperishable, rare, homogeneous, easily stored, not subject to wide fluctuations of value, and always in demand among those you trade with. This leads you to the decision to use gold as money. Gold money is a tangible value in itself and a token of wealth actually produced. When you accept a gold coin in payment for your goods, you actually deliver the goods to the buyer; the transaction is as safe as simple barter. When you store your savings in the form of gold coins, they represent the goods which you have actually produced and which have gone to buy time for other producers, who will keep the productive process going, so that you’ll be able to trade your coins for goods any time you wish."

"Money cannot function as money, i.e., as a medium of exchange, unless it is backed by actual, unconsumed goods."

"Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce."

"Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders."

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold . . . .

The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the “hidden” confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard."

The above quotes are courtesy of Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan.

Watch this week as the power elite try to capitalize on the damage they've done to consolidate power into the New World Order they've been dreaming about and writing about for the last century. Luckily for us, there are powerful forces opposing this move. Not too many nations really want to lose their sovereignty to a one world government run by the IMF or World Bank. Their arguments against it become weaker if their currencies collapse, though!

--97T--

[NinerSevenTango]

Meanwhile, global warming continues to not exist .....

And people in the Northern latitudes are worried about trying not to freeze to death this winter.

The same ilk who would have us all destroyed on the altar of global warming also support the moochers and looters who have destroyed our economy, and are hoping to gain the power of life and death over people through control over the energy they need to survive. All the better to get the cooperation of the people if energy rations become a form of welfare.

--97T--

[handlewanker]

I think there are too many buzz words that really hide the actual sense of perception.

Take for instance Global Warming, which to the few mean a degree or two of temperature rise, due to some factor within or beyond Humanoid control, which will cause the large glaciers to melt, so dumping millions of gallons of melt water into the oceans, and as this melt water is fresh water it rides on the salt water and upsets the functioning of the Conveyor Belt, so they say.

However to the misinformed, Global Warming means a hot summer, end of story, so where does the impending new ice age come in if'n the climate is gonna get warmer?

For that answer you need to know what climatologists go to school for, and understand the flow and effect of tidal currents coupled with the fact that warm water rises and cold water sinks, and the fact that it only takes a few degrees to be the difference between a snow field and a lake.

Water will always find it's own level, while at the same time you can have a snow field a mile high sitting right on your own doorstep, and if'n the weather doesn't cause the snow to melt you'll still have a mile high of snow, all year round in some cases.

Just pray to whomsoever you favour with your penny in the plate Sunday offerings that the snow don't melt, 'cos if'n it do, yo'all gonna need the services of old Noah quick time when it pours down to the sea, and physics being what it was when I went to school means that the water will get a bit deeper than yo' bin accustomed to previously, especially around all the expensive beachfront property.

So, don't worry, be happy, the pseudo scientists are telling you it aint gonna happen, and you can bank on their word being Kosher to the T......LOL.

BTW 97T, it doesn't matter how much funny money the banks print, just as long as you don't borrow any of it.

The fact that the Government is the biggest borrower means they are anticipating your tax money coming in, so far into the distant future that there aint gonna be anyone left alive to repay it, if'n they were just born today and lived to be a hundred or so.

Now that's a loan with a long term payback period by anyone's stretch of the imagination.

How do they get so much borrowing credibility? Because they can create and/or raise taxes just whenever they please, and there aint nuttin' anyone can do about it.

What they and the banks do is to suck you in to the prospect of easy money for anything you want, earning capacity is not a problem.

When you can't pay the easy money back plus interest, they just take the house/car/Plasma TV etc back, and as inflation has made them worth less, the country goes into shock status eventually, which is where yo'all are now.

Money has no real value, not like gold which is a tangible asset and can be used as money, while at the same time having a number of uses that make it a unique asset.

Like everthing else on the market, it has a value, but most of all it has credibility, just don't go buying it at your local jewellers.
Ian.