Thursday, September 30, 2010

Today In History : Chamberlain Appeases Evil. A Warning Of Future Consequences To Those Appeasing Evil Today. Evil Cannot Be Reasoned With Or Negotiated With. Evil Must Be Dealt With Firmly Under The Authority Of Law And Justice.


posted by TimingLogic at 12:45 PM

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The People Have Spoken - Iceland’s Former Prime Minister Is Referred To Criminal Court In Connection With Iceland’s Bankster Crisis. And Why Britain’s Gordon Brown Should Be Joining Him. Let The The World Take Notice Of The Application Of The Rule Of Law To Elitist Crooks.

Jail time for Iceland’s bankster-loving Prime Minister?

Britain’s Gordon Brown should be next.

And Charlie Munger after that.  Not because he broke the law but because he’s a bankster-loving, democratic-hating elitist.  Just kidding.  I don’t want to send Charlie to trial.  But the story is too good to miss.

And while it has nothing to do with this post, let’s throw in another link.  Our President and his team tell the press how much Americans love their policies.  And just in case we don’t, they tell us to stop whining.  Let’s hope we have something up our sleeves for both political parties in 2010 and especially 2012.  That would be our proverbial foot up their ass and a swift good riddance.  We need someone who exhibits leadership qualities and will reform the corrupt cesspool in Washington.  No more Emanuals, Clintons, Geithners, Summers, Goolsbees and other warmed over retreads from the horrendous Clinton administration and Dummycrat party.

How many times have we said the banksters and their political stooges have won nothing?  In fact we just wrote something of this a few days ago.  And what did we say some time ago? 

“Yes, Wall Street has stolen untold trillions of our money but as we have written dozens of times since 2009's low, the crisis has not passed. Wall Street won the early battles because of the element of surprise. (And these are indeed battles because Wall Street crooksters don't care one iota about the American people.) Wall Street caught their opponent (We the People) off guard in their early successes at extorting money out of us. But just as with Hitler's non-aggression pact with Poland, its subsequent promises not to invade Poland and its ultimate blitzkrieg, Germany won early battles through the element of surprise. But once the mighty arsenal of democracy, the United States and We the People, got its engines turning, it was but a matter of time before Germany would lose. This exact same dynamic is what we have witnessed with our crooked banking system. But, in fact, there is absolutely no way to go back. The game is over. It's time to rebuild a new economic America based on democratic principles.”

The world is watching these events in Iceland and the comments out of Britain regarding their former Prime Minister.  The courage of people in these countries to speak the unspeakable will surely give courage and cover to people seeking justice and the application of the rule of law to crooks in other countries.  This is the elitist’s worst nightmare.  An enabled and free-thinking society seeking the application of reason and the rule of law over cronyism, cover ups and favoritism.

posted by TimingLogic at 10:35 AM

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

China’s Expanding Belligerence

posted by TimingLogic at 1:15 PM

Monday, September 27, 2010

There are some formatting bugs with the Blogger(Google) editor. I am using a Microsoft product, Windows Live Writer, instead. Hopefully the blog will be readable after this switch.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:01 AM

What’s Next For Gold’s Rising Wedge Pattern?

Obviously gold has not shown any price weakness in the past month or so but let's amuse ourselves with the unthinkable as a follow up to the last post. Gold is in the process of filling out a major multi-year pattern which is coming to an end within days or weeks. Something is going to give one way or another. It doesn't have to be a big "give" but this pattern is near a completion. If we see coming price weakness as we remarked regarding our cycle count algorithm, what are the possible price target zones?

Rising wedge patterns are bearish in nature. If gold breaks to the downside, this pattern has two downside targets. The first downside target would possibly-probably preserve gold's uptrend. The second downside target would damage the uptrend substantially and could lead to further weakness.. Regardless, the future of gold is dependent on future fundamentals.

Given the size and length of time of this rising wedge pattern, I suspect the chances of it completing to the downside are much greater. i.e., Shorter term patterns intraday or of some number of days or weeks are less indicative of repeatable human behavior and are often aberrations that resolve themselves without fanfare. Longer term patterns such as this one which has lasted two years are more likely to represent timeless human behavior that is manifested through recognizable patterns. In other words, these patterns are visual representations of the market's herd behavior.

Remember, gold assets have already shown us what they are going to do under crisis. They imploded back in 2008. The historical comparisons to what gold did in the Great Depression are pointless. What matters is how gold assets have acted under current fundamentals. As we have remarked ad nauseam, this environment is nothing like the Great Depression. At the onset of the Great Depression the U.S. was the richest country in the world. Today, the U.S.'s elitist crooks and their political stooges have bankrupted us.

The world's political idiots and elites have chosen to maintain a very corrupt global economic model with hopes they can keep the self-serving fraud intact. In an act of great irony, the fact that the status quo won't do the right thing simply brings more attention and sunlight onto the corruption we see today, rather than allowing them to sweep it under the rug as they believe they have. e.g., As an example, the more active the Federal Reserve is, the more people scrutinize it and begin to question its legitimacy as it acts in secret and outside of the view of democracy to perpetuate massive fraud and corruption. The more this happens, the more it threatens its very existence with greater and greater scrutiny in perpetuation of fraud. Ditto with the corrupt Republican and Democrat parties and the intertwined corruption of corporate welfare and fascism they perpetuate for their own greed and fraud. All of this works in a harmoniously energy of the universe to create a wonderful dynamic. That would be karma is a bitch.
2010-09-25_1057
For those who are having trouble understanding monetary policy or don't have the time to figure it out, and are therefore left to question who is telling the truth as to whether central banks are printing money, (and as we have said more times than I care to remember, they aren't. A fact that evades reason and sanity.) below is oil priced in gold. Do you see any inflation? There is no inflation in the global economy. The only thing propping up asset prices is financial speculation and the state handing other people's money to crooks in an attempt to keep their schemes going.
2010-09-25_1338
posted by TimingLogic at 5:55 AM

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Private Equity Billionaire Likens President Obama To Hitler

If one objectively looks at the evidence and understands the role of capital in society, it's pretty much incontrovertible that private equity in its current form is a virus and serves no useful purpose in our society other than to make a handful of very greedy people very rich at other's expense.  Or as we termed private equity back before the economic collapse, it has become private debt.  Firms use our banking system's resources to lever up corporations while private equity extorts other people's money in the process.  In its wake often lies a cesspool of debt, bankruptcy and lost economic opportunity for hard working Americans.  This compares to innovation which makes people rich at no one's expense.  In other words, it increases society's wealth.   Private equity in its current form should be illegal.  As part of the corporatocracy which is pillaging society, it's impact is far more destructive than any crime I can think of. 

I think it's very important at this time in our country that people should really consider what governmental policies are important to them.  And what kind of society do we want.  Because the calls for austerity right now are really driven by people who have thousands of times more money than the average person in this country to manipulate the media and the message it delivers.  A call for austerity is driven by the corporatist and elitist welfare recipients who are living off of the taxpayer dole.  They want social programs which benefit democracy to be sliced so they can continue to live off of government welfare in the form of massive handouts and subsidies given to the very rich.   All while cutting basic social services that will decimate the underprivileged who have often been put in this situation by said elitists and their purchasing of our government for their own greed and avarice. 

We need a new economic model that reduces the need for government services and gives people economic opportunity in lieu of it.  We do not need austerity which will start a recursive collapse to the bottom of the barrel.  But doing so will harm the very wealthy who have destroyed our country.  They will most surely do anything and everything to stop progress.

title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:10 AM

Blackwater Provides Services To Multinational Corporations Including Monsanto

Anyone who has watched the movie Food Inc will recognize this story in The Nation as highly, highly disturbing.

We need to be very concerned about our freedoms and our democracy.  The corporatocracy needs to be defeated in upcoming elections.  Our Constitution needs to be amended to strike down the absolutely corrupt Supreme Court ruling which gives corporations personhood.  Our government is being whored out for profit and the people of this country have almost no voice.  
posted by TimingLogic at 8:47 AM

The FBI Spends Untold Sums Of American Citizen's Money Spying On Peaceful Political Activists - Including While They Were At Church - Under The Guise Of Anti-Terrorism

posted by TimingLogic at 8:22 AM

Friday, September 24, 2010

AddThis Bookmarking & Sharing Added To The Blog

I have added a widget to the bottom of each post that allows people to share and email specific posts from the blog. I have had some requests for this since my blog is so low-tech. :)

AddThis doesn't require a Blogger.com account (so you can use anonymously or without signing in to anything.) and can be used to email, bookmark, link to or share posts using every popular web service. It's very easy to use and self-explanatory when you run your mouse over any of the icons at the bottom of each post.  There are literally hundreds of icons.  Those include printing, emailing, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, Favorites, Twitter, Google and on and on and on.


Hopefully this will appease the savage beasts. 
posted by TimingLogic at 12:17 PM

Timely Remarks About The Shiny Metal - A Gold Update

We've made some pretty good intermediate term gold calls on here over the years. A few notable calls includes remarking that the next move in precious metals would be down before gold and silver assets crashed in 2008 and that gold stocks were the only attractive equity investment after the crash in 2008. I do believe that last call was the day before gold stocks started their current rally.  Some have now rallied a few hundred percent. And a few months ago when gold was peaking we were rattling our saber about concerns over gold. The shiny metal followed suit with a reasonably large correction. A correction that caused substantial losses by at least one major hedge fund. So what voodoo did we use to make those calls? Well there are quite a few data points but one is below.

Just as everything else on our planet, every financial market has a rhythm or natural cycle to it.  In other words, we see a back and forth of price that happens in patterns or bursts as markets move higher, lower or chop.  I attempt to capture those natural rhythms for obvious reasons.  We have highlighted the algorithm shown below on here a few times when applied to the NYSE.  We highlighted it signaling a bullish call soon after the equity market rally started in 2009 as we used it to point out Nouriel Roubini's wrong way calls at that time and again in February of 2010 signaling the most overbought equity market since 1995.  When reviewing it in early 2009, we also used it as an aid to guesstimate a future turning point for markets.  We wrote back then that the first turning point downward was the second quarter of 2010.  Guess what?  We hit the equity market peak in the second quarter of this year.  Another possible turning date we remarked of is now upon us.  That is September of 2010.  (Interestingly, there is that doggone 1995 pivot point again. Have you noticed how new home builds are back to 1995 levels as well? Haha. 1995 plays a very critical role in our macro analysis.)

Anyway, we can apply this same cycle count algorithm to the gold market. And that is what is shown below overlaid on gold.  As a count condition increases, so does the algorithm, thus signaling a bullish dynamic.   If count conditions no longer increase, the algorithm starts printing negative counts or heads downward.

Notice when we were ratcheting up our remarks about gold back some months ago, the cycle counter was not following gold higher. Eventually gold followed the cycle count algorithm lower in a reasonably large correction. Notice how the action in the cycle counter today is not confirming the price move to new highs as was the case a few months ago. Will the outcome be the same?  ie, Is gold due another correction as it attempts to sustain a breakout to new highs?

I think it's important to understand the dynamics of all financial markets in this cycle. Both Janet Tavakoli and George Soros have since come out with a similar position to ours as it relates to gold. And this past week Max Keiser had a guest on his Youtube channel remarking how the gold market was being manipulated by a handful of very rich people trying to corner the market as we have seen in almost every commodity this cycle. In other words, as financial demand (manipulation) has outstripped economic demand for commodities and other assets.  Of course, Keiser doesn't call it manipulation because he has a vested interest in gold.  But, it is indeed manipulation when gold buyers realize exchanges have more contracts than physical gold and are attempting to force a run on gold.  This has happened numerous times in the last few hundred years and we used to discipline speculators for this type of manipulation.  But given that the trading exchanges are also corrupt in their over subscriptions of gold, the whole system is rotten.   There truly is no rule of law in financial markets.  Financial reform is a ruse perpetrated by a criminal class.

I don't know when the gold bubble will pop, but it will. There have been countless reasons cited by gold bulls as to why gold is going up. Deflation, inflation, a crash in currencies, the Fed printing money, the end of fiat currency, the end of the United States and on and on and on. In the last few weeks I saw someone remark that gold is warning us of coming war. Well, in actuality, they are all wrong. The only reason gold is going up is speculative demand. Speculative demand enhanced by the many new leveraged gold derivative products which allow over subscription or leverage.  As we have remarked, it's the same dynamic that is creating all of the other financial crises.  Action in the gold market is driven by the same corrupt system with the same corrupt players as all of the other corrupt financial markets. You won't read that on most web sites or any subscription services because it doesn't fit with the bullish belief system or the vested interest many have in gold.  Gold is not driven by a search for honesty or legitimacy.  It's being driven by unpure and dishonest financial mobsters. As Soros has recently remarked, there is no safe investment. And that is what we wrote before the crash in 2008 and it still holds true.

We've already remarked on here that the Federal Reserve bailed out the gold market once and they weren't likely to bail it out again. Most people who are ideologically-driven as it pertains to gold would find that remark blasphemous but that is indeed an incontrovertible fact. When gold and silver assets were cratering in 2008 because its primary owners, the corrupt financial system, was unwinding, it was the Federal Reserve who stepped in to save gold speculators. Otherwise, we wouldn't even be talking about gold right now. All of the gold bulls would be panhandling for their grocery bills because of all of the money they would have permanently lost in 2008's collapse. It is only the Federal Reserve's attempts at reflation that is propping up gold.

Because the Federal Reserve is telegraphing their future actions, it is providing cover for the speculators in all markets to ramp up their risk. That includes gold. But in order for all of them to be successful, the Federal Reserve is going to have to back stop every financial market either directly or indirectly. First it was banking. Then housing. Now it is corporates and Treasuries. When does it end? Where does it end? Who does and doesn't get bailed out in this corrupt financial game?  Well, we know most Americans who rely on hard work to make a living aren't getting bailed out comparative to financial gamblers.  Do you honestly believe the Federal Reserve is capable of bailing out all financial markets in the biggest financial bubble in history?

Regardless, the cycle counter on gold made a peak this month just as price was approaching the June highs but speculators have continued to push the price of gold past that. We shall see what happens but how about something else to think about. Gold is close to finishing up a massive bearish rising wedge that goes back well over two years. And while chart patters are anecdotal, longer term patterns often play out to some degree of accuracy as market rhythms based on repeatable human behavior repeat similar patterns.  The longer the patterns are, the more likely they are reflecting measurable repeated behavior.  All of these remarks about gold entering periods of seasonal strength and whatnot are yesterday's news. Years ago we cited seasonality of different markets and sources for that data going back decades or longer at Moore's. We have seen on countless occasions that today's fundamentals throws all of that out the window. I don't know where gold's rise will end but it will end when the bulls don't expect it. You know, like now. And it won't be a happy ending.



posted by TimingLogic at 8:05 AM

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Here It Comes: The Divine Winds (Kamikaze) ..... Of Volatility

A couple of friends have sent me links from other financial blogs titled "Here it comes" after we started putting up our "Here it comes" series of posts. Either there is a mind meld of the universe of consciousness or this blog is a favorite of quite a few other bloggers. Enjoy the post. Just no flagrant plagiarism please. "Here it comes" is now copyrighted. Haha. :)

I read some remarks recently that Japan had shifted its primary economic ties westward to China in lieu of the United States. And the author was extolling the virtues of such a harmonious decision. Obviously because the author thought the United States was doomed and the next century was the Asian century. Anyone who understands anything about geopolitics, history and economics knows this type of analysis is absolutely ridiculous. Relations between China and Japan have been tense at best and downright brutally heinous at worst for well over a millennium. That Japanese businesses now use China for cheap labor and a source of profits changes that dynamic how? Remember, as we have cited, American multinational corporations loved the Nazis before the outbreak of World War II. And in today's world, the same economists and business leaders love Communist China. The parallels do not stop there.

Ultimately, the integration of western businesses with communist China's leadership has created a proto-fascist dynamic which will more than likely lead to inflame future political tensions as self-interested states seek to assert themselves. O f course they will say no one saw it coming just as they said of the financial crisis in 2008, World War II, the Great Depression, the Internet bubble collapse, the economic stagnation of the 1970s, the financial crisis of the late 1980s and every other major economic or geopolitical event in the twentieth century.

Anyone who really understands what started World War's I and II realizes it was economics and the state, or maybe we should say state-based capitalism or state-based economies which was the underlying cause of both wars. That took the form of colonialism or fascism or whatever ism tickles your fancy. All of Europe practiced it as did Japan. Hundreds of millions were left to deal with the consequences. And that was often with their lives.

Now tell me, what is the most prevalent economic model around the world today? Well, I'm glad you asked. That would be state-based capitalism, a favorite of Wall Street. Actually Wall Street has created state-based capitalism in the United States so make sure you thank them not just for the tens of millions of unemployed in this country or our massive bailouts that they personally pocketed but for future events associated with this dynamic.

And what is a primary outcome of state-based capitalism or state-based economics? I do believe we would call that the manipulation or subversion of the rule of law or the creation of laws serving the state at the expense of individuals or democracy. And what happens when the rule of law is manipulated or subverted? It provides cover for the most radical elements in society who see injustice as an opening to express their radical dissenting views. (Dissent based on reason is the best gift a citizen can give democracy. Dissent based on hatred, intolerance, bigotry and other elements of the radical's repertoire are simply a manifestation of evil. Of the ego.) And what happens when cover is provided for the most radical elements of society? I do believe we see vigilantism, intolerance, hatred, bigotry, an attempt to impress their often disturbing will upon society and other unpleasantries. All of this is driven in large part by lack of economic opportunity and corruption which is an outcome to state-based capitalism or state-based economics.

In other words, in a statist view of economics, the state primarily determines who successfully participates in economic opportunity. And as George Carlin would say, "you aren't it.". If we apply Newton's Third Law, we have an equal but opposite reaction to the exertion of economic control by the state. That can manifest itself in many forms, some constructive and some not. We often see some attempt by the mob to radicalize society and-or radicalize the state in an attempt to subvert it to reflect their ideals of self-interested vigilantism, intolerance and hatred. Of course, endlessly manipulative power-seeking politicians are more than happy to oblige. While these dynamics will take years to fully bloom, do you see the seeds of any of this developing in the world today? You may not have to look far. I can see it in almost every major economy in the world today. Open your eyes. For when it is in full bloom, it is too late.

What have we said for years was our major concern with China? That their economic crisis will eventually lead to political unrest. And that a useful target of blame will be an external enemy. That is, the United States. But, in fact, maybe it will be its long time nemesis, Japan that tips Asia into volatility. The state, often in conjunction with radical elements, always finds it useful as a control point to blame an external enemy in order to gain or maintain control in times of unrest.

So what is the impetus of this post? It is this. Even though on the surface this seems like a minor event, I would say we might look back years from now and realize this was the official kickoff of an upcoming war cycle. Speak of which, why is China making yen purchases in the foreign exchange market? Is this some attempt at economic warfare? ie, Driving Japan's rising yen problem?

The party is only starting unless the people of the world stop it. Globalization in the form we see today will always lead to this dynamic. As we have been uniquely saying since this crisis first unfolded two years ago, globalization is dead. Now we simply wait for political idiots to spend other people's money and have happy-talk G20 meetings in an attempt to keep it going. They will fail because this economic model guarantees it. The first seeds of the war cycle are germinating. Are you reading it in the mainstream media?

The ridiculous remarks of the Great Recession being past us are lunacy fed to us by the crooked self-interests of the status quo. If the state has its way, this party is going to last years. Maybe decades. The party is just getting started. And as long as politicians are able to give endless supply of other people's money to their corrupt corporate donors and banksters, the kickoff phase of the party is going to continue. Where is our government?

It's laughable to look back today to Hank Paulson's remarks when he was Treasury Secretary before the collapse in 2008. Of his remarks of how he had never before witnessed such unprecedented prosperity around the world in his life time. And how bullish he was on the global economy. Thanks for that insight Tater. It was completely brilliant. You picked the exact top of economic prosperity around the world for decades to come. And all of Wall Street, the economics community and politicians were in complete agreement. Bureaucrats should not be making so many substantial decisions about our personal economic opportunity. Because now the outcome will be incredible volatility or worse.

We desperately need a return of democracy. Of reason. Of the rule of law.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:21 AM

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Joke Of The Day: National Bureacracy Of Economic Retards (NBER) Calls End To Recession. BAAAHAAA!

posted by TimingLogic at 1:15 PM

Has The FBI Abused Its Privilege As The People's Federal Law Enforcement Agency?

posted by TimingLogic at 9:36 AM

Diesel Fuel Secreting Bacterium

When the Peak Oilers were howling that we were going to run out of energy in the next ten years, or whatever they were arguing, we wrote numerous times and in some detail that high energy prices and national security concerns had unleashed American and other democratic nation's ingenuity on the problem of being obliged to a belligerent OPEC cartel. (It's this same dynamic which could bring down the Federal Reserve cartel.)

Using bacteria, which needs no external feed stock, to create diesel fuel would allow our existing infrastructure to be used in the future. With a breakthrough in relatively clean coal liquification, the U.S.'s natural gas reserves and our oil reserves, which counting unconventional shale oil, are greater than Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. has enough carbon-based energy to fuel our future for the next five hundred to one thousand years or more anyway. Even if our population continues to grow, the efficiency of future energy use will almost certainly mark this coming decade as our peak "mined" carbon energy consumption anyway. Countries like France saw their peak crude oil usage thirty years ago and it has been declining ever since. All it takes is a commitment to efficiency.

Peak Oil is nothing more than pure manipulation to support dubious and even criminal objectives of Wall Street crooks. And guess what? You need Peak Oil to provide cover for Wall Street's criminal manipulation of the energy markets and you need man made global warming to enforce Wall Street's criminal cap and trade pipe dreams now don't you? Manipulative criminal schemes dreamed up by Wall Street to stick their dirty fingers in everything we do and extract a massive tax of trillions of dollars on the backs of the American people.

Now some of these methods are dirty and without necessary oversight, companies will destroy our environment, but I think in a worst case scenario, we are quite capable of managing that both through advances in extraction technology and through the oversight of a government that works for the people. Something we don't have today. But, in the end we probably won't have to worry too much about that anyway. In other words, as we wrote long ago, the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. The mining of carbon-based energy won't end because we ran out of carbon-based energy. We will invent our way out of our dependence on crude methods of energy production. Whether that is wind or solar or chemical or whatever, it will happen. The never-ending supply of Luddites and Malthusians provides a virtuous circle of lunacy which feeds off of the hyped media frenzy.

The only thing stopping us from being energy independent at this very moment is politics. And future innovation will only increase the legitimacy of that statement. Bring the jobs home and let's encourage the market to innovate. Now. And at the same time, we can cut trillions of dollars in defense and aid to part of the world that need to take primary responsibility for their own self-created problems, the Middle East.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:29 AM

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Jupiter Closest To Earth In 50 Years

As the article states, astronomers have noted comets and asteroids have been hitting the planet recently. A little known fact is that there are many variables needed to sustain life. One of them is a large protector planet like Jupiter which shields the earth from being bombarded by many comets and asteroids.

As the article states, Uranus is also visible as it is in alignment with Jupiter. You'll probably need binoculars or a telescope though to see it.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:19 AM

Friday, September 17, 2010

Elizabeth Warren In Her Own Words On The Appointment To Newly Created Consumer Protection Agency

The Wall Street pig men are already out in force squealing about Warren's appointment. Lobbyists failed to defeat Warren because of a populist backing of her appointment. Most assuredly, if Timmy and team could have, they would have put some banking crony in this position.

The pig men are already stating that consumer protections will restrict access to consumer credit. The reasons for the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street howling are obvious. Warren is a tough, independent-minded advocate for Americans and knows the con game of the pig men.

That said, I have a problem with this agency for many reasons. One which comes to the forefront is that we have a for-profit banking system. Banking is a consumer of capital not a creator. The greater the exertion of control banking has on the economy, the greater it restricts its vibrancy. A not-for-profit or public banking system would remove any need for consumer oversight and the creation of this agency. It's only the predation of specifically large, criminal Wall Street firms that really requires this protection. So, in some sense this agency is something only a bureaucracy could imagine in an effort to sustain itself rather than addressing the root cause of the issue. So, instead of addressing the issue of breaking up these cabals of crookedness or introducing a new monetary system, we pay greater taxes to fund this agency because political stooges are beholden to a system that denies access to capital to millions of Americans and perpetuates poverty.....because it enriches their political power.

This is akin to a heart attack patient ordering a diet soft drink with a 1500 calorie hamburger laden with grease.

Link to her remarks here.
posted by TimingLogic at 6:09 PM

United States Government Signs Secret Fascist Deal With Banksters That Allows For-Profit Private Company To Profit From Military Deaths

posted by TimingLogic at 12:03 PM

Big JuJu From The Market Gods?

September 16th is a day marked on my calendar as a potentially significant change for financial markets. Big juju from the market gods is not always an easy thing to divine so we shall see.

Markets don't always align to the day with underlying rhythms but as shown below, we are quite possibly near a major rhythm change. And given we have now made lower highs and lower lows, any rhythm change will not be a pleasant one. Because Thursdays seldom represent any deviation from the current market rhythm, I would look to next Tuesday as a possible indication of this fact.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:15 AM

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Right On Time: Japan Moves To Boost The Dollar (Weaken The Yen). Let The Howling Begin.

Funny how it works that way.

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 10:35 AM

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made The Rich Richer And Turned Its Back On The Middle Class (ie Shit On Everyone Else)

I don't make any money recommending books and I don't particularly find hawking them relevant to any discourse on here. I have mentioned a couple of books I have read because they played into our themes. Winner-Take-All Politics is a newly-released book I plan to read because I know how important the 1970s were to the destruction of America. (By the way, if you want to read another horrific book on Washington power and corruption driven by neoliberal ideology, including using our military to enforce the will of some bizarre cult-like interpretation of Christianity, read The Family - The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The author wrote this book from the inside of this political cult in Washington started in the 1930s known within its circles as the Family. A lot of extremist neoliberal Democrat and Republican politicians and lobbyists belong to this cult. And it is a cult. The book is taken from a direct account and is frightening on may levels. Many of our politicians are radical extremists hell bent on destroying the world. Not to burst your bubble about how morally-pure politicians are. I would highly recommend it.)

The general premise of Winner-Take-All Politics is that our government has been hijacked by the very rich. One area I want to focus on is their investigatory work that shows how the very rich began to mobilize against democracy in the 1970s. Because this aligns with some of my investigative analysis that we have briefly mentioned. That is, that economic activity within the United States peaked in the late 1970s to around 1980.

One result of this 1970s mobilization against democracy is that lobbyist numbers grew by nearly 1,000 percent during that period of time as the very rich pooled their resources to turn our politicians into a bunch of bought and paid for corrupt stooges. And it was this organization of the very rich which led to the successes, starting in the 1980s, of the modern-day neoliberal Republican party and its supportive Washington think tanks. Eventually to compete with such power and corruption, the followed suit and catered to corporations and the very rich. So, now we are left with a completely corrupt Washington which does no will of anyone other than those with deep pockets. We know lobbyists corrupt because they are peddling power for sale. Studies have confirmed policies supported by massive lobbyist spending has as much as a 3oo% greater likelihood of passing. Washington political idiots are selling out our country. China, Myanmar, banksters, corporations, billionaires. It matters not as long as you've got the dough.

If you understand this dynamic, you understand what types of wonderful gifts the very rich have brought us. A few examples are corporate welfare, "free markets", "free trade", endless wars through the assertion of American power, neofeudalistic economics, trickle down economics, Reaganomics, Clintonomics, corporate fascism, the reliance of citizens on government handouts, the destruction of the middle class, the destruction of pensions, the outsourcing of tens of millions of jobs so the very rich could keep more of the national income, endless banking corruption, dismantling of our food safety standards, the Internet bubble, the current lobbyist bubble, the radicalization of our military-industrial complex, the dismantling of the rule of law and on and on and on. Their evil scams are endless. By the way, they also brought us the Federal Reserve and the associated income tax in 1913. Debt-based money needs an income tax to back it and passage of both in 1913 is no coincidence to anyone who understands monetary economics or its history.

This dynamic is how Bill Clinton and Algore made $300 million dollars after leaving the White House. By doing special favors for the very rich. Still believe in anthropogenic global warming? Believe much of anything the media tells you? And now the very rich are backing the Tea Party and trying to turn it from a grass roots revolt against Washington into a movement which serves their own interests so that they can now keep all of the money they have stolen from society. And, indeed the vast majority of it was stolen via wealth transfer.

None of this is really anything new. It's the age old battle of good versus evil. The greatest evil which threatens our country resides within its borders. But our founding fathers told us this might happen. And so did many after them including Presidents Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, Jackson and Kennedy. And let's be honest with ourselves and drop the ridiculous belief that the mega rich in America are somehow different and that they care about democracy or you or me. There has never been any evidence of this. Once they got their way, they have ruthlessly butchered this country and its rule of law more than once.

These people working outside of the view of democracy truly are evil. It is a class of people who seek to subvert democracy and our government for their own personal power, just as happened in Rome and thousands of other cases throughout human history. In the process, the modern day incarnation here in America has literally destroyed millions of people's economic lives. They have caused countless thousands upon thousands of deaths through the distortion of the affordability of health care and the denial of it to countless Americans. I could cite example after example of how this dynamic has had a profoundly disruptive and cruel effect on freedoms and democracy. Evil must be recognized as evil. This isn't just greed or capitalism. The vast majority of us have relied on capitalism to serve food on our table and we never resorted to these tactics. This is pure evil. It is the ruthless treatment of human beings as objects without empathy or concern for their well-being of any kind. That is the very evil that has been estimated to have killed over a billion human beings since records of heinous atrocities have been kept. These people have done much more damage to our country than any political or military enemy of the United States. And, in fact, they have created many of the enemies of the United States though Blowback of America's neoliberal foreign and military policy. Here and here.

How often have we written that economic activity in the United States peaked around 1980? It is no coincidence that this book is confirming my quantitative analysis of economic facts and history. And, yes it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you live in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburg or any of the thousands of smaller cities and towns in the industrial belt, none of this is a surprise because you have lived it. Interestingly, if we apply economic value to equity markets, does that mean we could actually see a worst case scenario where stock markets return to levels not seen since the 1970s? I don't believe so but then much relies on future events. No one really knows but I would not consider it completely impossible.

The very rich are almost always driven by the god of power and megalomaniacal ego. It is the very rich which is always the source of class warfare. Always. Endlessly. Without exception. It would be a great paradox to ever be anything else. Because their ego serves the god of power and will do almost anything to anyone to achieve it. One cannot serve two masters. One either serves power or democracy. One cannot serve good and evil. The ego either serves the intent to control or the intent of truth.

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. " -- John Dalberg-Acton

The world is seldom as it seems. Much of what we read in the mainstream media is the very rich or power-seeking attempting to influence or manipulate our view of the world. That is either via some type of ad hominem attacks or hyperbole to divert attention from the real issues at hand or outright distortions of the truth. Newt Gingrich is one who comes to mind in today's ad hominem attacks on our President. Yet it was Gingrich who is substantially complicit in destroying America. Our current President inherited Gingrich's mess. That said, he really hasn't done anything but make it worse.

"Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

Lobbying, corporate personhood, privately funded political campaigns, secret meetings with our politicians, secret government and all of the other smarmy anti-democratic corruption in Washington must be eradicated to restore our country to its greatness. It's time to vote all of them out. And the two party system with them. We need transformative change from real democratic leadership. That is, we need leadership provided by We the People.

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:39 AM

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A Magical Moment From The Garden Yesterday

The beauty and purity of nature in lieu of the typical psychobabble rant.

A female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird and Trumpet Vine. Click for a larger view.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:11 AM

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Timmy G Pimps Out The United States Treasury To Goldman Sachs

Unless we are in the midst of a war, every single meeting between politicians or between politicians and private firms or individuals should be videotaped and available to the people of this country. It is our country and these servants are supposed to work for us.

What are these bureaucrats talking about in secrecy? Lack of transparency is the territory of corruption and the state. Of evil, power and greed.

There was once a wise man who looked upon the bureaucracy of his time and said I do not know you. And our founding fathers would look upon our government today and most assuredly make the same observation. These types of secret meetings are more of the same smarmy dealings that have killed our economy. Where is my secret meeting with Timmy G? I have a right to know what these conversations are about. And if you don't want to tell me, then you are talking about things that you shouldn't be talking about and you are not a public servant. You are instead a beholden stooge of special interests seeking to usurp democracy and the rule of law.

Our country is for sale courtesy of Dummycrats and Republikaaners.

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 11:48 AM

Proof Of Literally How Stupid Nobel Prize-Winning Economists Actually Are

I got this from a MarketWatch post from Paul Farrell. I love Paul but he fell out of bed and cracked his head when he decided to pen this article.

Here is the link to the Nobel-Prize winning economist's article where he cites China's economy will be $123 trillion in forty years. I can't believe anyone would be so stupid to pen such a line of pure bullshit. The entire premise for the article is completely asinine. It's brain dead. This has to be one of the most laughable and indefensible articles by a credentialed or learned idiot that I have had the displeasure of reading. It is all hyperbole. It's a mockery of any attempt at a reasoned analysis or a scientific method. Every single bit of it.

Anyone who believes they can predict economics forty years into the future, when the economics profession has never predicted any major event, shows just how truly incompetent this profession is. And I think it tells us generally about the type of person who is drawn to the profession. When economics was a social science, many of its minds were brilliant. Today it is full of intellectual monkeys. I'm sure it would be completely laughable to see the assumptions for his predictions. Which, by the way, is why he hasn't shared them.

China's sustainable economy is most likely no more than $3 trillion today give or take a trillion. How does one draw enough reasoned and scientific assumptions to go from $3 trillion today to $123 trillion in forty years? I'll tell you how. With absolutely incompetent, deluded, brain dead, unscientific, unreasoned hyperbole.

These are the type of dumbasses who are making decisions about our economy. And I do mean dumbasses. Candy-coating needs to be thrown out the window. We need to take an honest assessment of what is going on in our country. We need to realize as a nation how completely and systemically incompetent these bureacrats are. I appreciate their right to be stupid as a free and stupid mind but that is exactly why they should not be "managing" our economy. They should not have any ability to "rule" or have any dominion over the free and sovereign people of this country.

The economy needs to be returned to the people and not bureaucrats or ivory-towered academics who are shielded from the real world. This article would figuratively end this economist in a soup line in the real economy were he attempting to peddle this to the real world. In other words, in the real world, goods and services are exchanged for value. This type of ivory-towered bullshit has no economic value. No one would trade anything with this Nobel Prize-winning economist for his work because in the real world it has no economic value. It's bullshit. It's snake oil. It's a con job.

The government needs to set and enforce economic rules and regulations and get out of the way. Never change the rules, ever again. We don't have elections every two or four years so new people get to start making new rules. Politicians are supposed to be stewards.

Economics is a game. The government is the referee. It needs to create and enforce the rules. For the last thirty plus years, all we have seen is the opposite. Government meddling with the rules, dismantling the rules and creating new rules under the influence of legalized bribery continues to tilt the game away from economic value, away from We the People and away from freedom. And they often do so under the advice and counsel of Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Now there is hell to pay for this systemically incompetent and corrupt behavior. And who is paying? The innocent people of our country. Those who were unable to defend themselves from this endless corruption of our government.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:46 AM

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Yen Roars To New 15 Year High Off Of 1995 Pivot - The Risks To The "Free Trade" Donkey

When Wall Street was slobbering with arrogance, in other words before the world changed forever, we wrote that there were two investments we liked. That was dollars and yen. The Yen is now hitting a 15 year high. It's interesting how that 1995 pivot we keep talking about comes into play across so many financial variables. It's big juju from the medicine man.

I'm going to tell you a little secret you won't read anywhere else. But it's our secret not to be shared. Just like all of our other secrets on here. :) Japan's economy was on the verge of a serious crisis in the 1990s after its bubble burst. The United States Federal Reserve helped the Bank of Japan manipulate the currency markets such that Japanese banks, who were in serious trouble, could replenish their balance sheets by devaluing the yen against the dollar. That act pushed massive amounts of Japanese banking money into the United States. That currency exchange gain and substantial interest delta yielded in dollars helped recapitalize Japanese banks for some period of time. At the same time, this scheme helped recapitalize a bankrupt Wall Street after the massive financial fraud in the United States in the late 1980s to early 1990s financial crisis. In other words, it recapitalized the U.S. Ponzi scheme to live another day. (For those who believe we will have a protracted global deflation like Japan has experienced, forget it. Japan's lengthy deflation was only possible because of many global economic dynamics that are not repeatable. 2008 was the beginning of the end. We are going to have crises galore with currencies, economies and political messes. Unlike Japan's 1989 bubble collapse, which was contained for decades, the world is now burning within a cycle of volatility.)

This 1990s manipulation of the currency markets by the Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve is what fueled the dollar bubble heading into 2000. It was also the primary rocket propellant that ignited the massively corrupt Internet bubble in the U.S. And once it began, other foreign financial firms piled on, creating one hell of a mess we now call the golden economic years under Bill Clinton. All of that bullshit the media and Wall Street pumped about American innovation in the 1990s and how strong our economy was under the absolutely horrific economic policies of Bill Clinton and Algore is a massive lie. That's right. Propaganda. Oh sure, the people who pumped this bulloney were true believers in their own self-deceit just as Wall Street and Washington believed it. It fed their own arrogance and ego. Americans were deceived by the endlessly corrupt and incompetent corporatist polity and Wall Street. But you are waking up to reality aren't you? The more you understand about truth, the more confidence you have in yourself and the less confidence you have in our leaderless corporatist political engine. That's good. We need a revolution of the mind to change our country. Part and parcel to that revolution of the mind is repudiating the mouth piece of Wall Street and political idiots - the mainstream media. It was the mainstream media who fed us all of the bullshit about an incredibly vibrant U.S. economy under what may be the worst President in American history, Bill Clinton.

The United States economy was collapsing under Clinton. And it can easily be proven quantitatively. Math doesn't lie. But politicians do. If the Federal Reserve was transparent and democratic instead of a corrupt cabal of cronies and thugs, we would have known what was going on at that time and people would have exposed the unintended consequences of their stupidity.

We made remark many years ago as to why oil was at $10 and gold was at $250 under Clinton. These markets were signaling coming economic collapse. How can oil be at $10 and gold at $250 if there is ample economic demand for energy and ample money creation in the economy? The most important measurements of money supply were imploding and so was sustainable economic demand for energy. We knew ages ago that this day would come. This is not some unpredictable event. I do share eventually. Not everything remains a mystery or a puzzle on here. :)

The Internet boom is most likely the broadest and most accepted lie of our time. Even greater than anthropogenic global warming, because every Wall Streeter and Washington politician believed it. It was the fraudulent Internet boom which still entrances Washington political idiots with undying belief in Wall Street's magical economic influence. But the reality is Wall Street doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground. Contrarily, Wall Street killed America. And listening to them today is why we are continuing to our spiral of death. Just remember that when you vote in 2010. Which party supports Wall Street's austerity plan? Republicans. You have two false positives to choose from - tax our way into irrelevance with Dummycrats or embrace Republikaaner sponsored austerity and associated cuts to necessary social programs to ensure we can pay off Wall Street's massive choke hold of government debt. It's all a fascist corporatist cabal controlled by the two party political system. The Marching Morons. And it should be no surprise that both political parties are in fact massively crooked corporations.

All of those companies that came public during the 1990s Internet "boom" who never even had a business plan let alone any chance of making a profit was all as a result of massive banking fraud on Wall Street. Massive. Unprecedented. Complete corruption. Heinous evil to line the pockets of Wall Street with investment banking fees. All while simultaneously lining the pockets of cronies and idiots who were bringing companies public that had less of a written business plan than I have on a Post-it for my weekly home projects. And who choked down all of that toxic vomit? Mutual funds, pension funds and the American public who experienced the worst investment losses since the Great Depression. We took the losses. The American citizens.

Wall Street has become what might be the the most corrupt evil America has ever faced. Or as a popular idiom states, a fish rots from the head first. Wall Street could teach the Roman elites a few new tricks about bringing down a nation.

How many bloggers and economists have said the housing bubble was because rates were taken low after the mild recession in 2000 and 2001? And that didn't need to happen because it was such a mild recession. Baahaa. Every single economist and blogger I have ever come across. Pure bulloney. Contrarily, how many times have we written that the U.S. economy has been collapsing for more than a decade? And that 2000 was a seminal event.

The world is seldom as it appears. Question everything you believe. It's almost all a myth, unsubstantiated theory or outright lies. Question every single thing a politician tells you because it's almost guaranteed to be a self-serving lie or a manipulation of the truth for their own ego-driven purposes.

At some point in time I would expect that there is going to be substantial statist backlash between nations as it pertains to currency markets. We have written of an anticipation of this currency dynamic for some time. Especially as it pertains to the yuan eventually collapsing or being devalued - whichever comes first. This is part of the rising nationalism we have been talking about since starting the blog. Japan's economy cannot manage a yen of this strength. It couldn't in the 1990s and it sure as hell can't in the global economic implosion that is developing today. Yet if Japan acts unilaterally to devalue the yen, it will set off a wave of neoliberal sabre rattling from political idiots around the globe of either howling about Japan cheating free trade through protectionism or it would provide other nations a rationalization to attempt to devalue their own currency as a self-interested response.

"Free trade" - Nazi Germany's Ministry of Propaganda would be proud. The elites have been working outside of the view of democracy to bilk our nation for decades. And now it is all being exposed. As Buffett has famously remarked, you only find out who has been swimming naked when the tide rolls out. The emperor has no clothes. There is no way we will ever return to the way of life over the last twenty or thirty years. Those times are long dead. The final nails are being put into the coffin. And with it the final nails are being driven into the coffin holding its belief system. Now we build a new belief system. It will take time. And the fight for the mind to determine that belief system is well underway. There will be many charlatans and false prophets of political and economic ideology during that process. All contributing to volatility.

Behind the scenes the rising cauldron of volatility and pent up backlash between nations continues to swell. All courtesy of the state.

The cycle of volatility continues.

posted by TimingLogic at 9:19 AM

Friday, September 10, 2010

Bobblehead Savant For The Corrupt Uses The WSJ Pulpit To Propose Coercive Nazi-Style Policies OF Economic Slavery

Can we just get these assholes out of our lives? Does anyone in this country actually work for the people? Who does this fidiot actually think he is? Is this a democracy or a test kitchen for ideas created by elitist stooges with highbrow credentials?

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:13 AM

Sinabung Erupts Again And Spews Hot Ash Three Miles Into The Atmosphere. The Fundamentalist Religion Of Anthropogenic Global Warming Is Dying.

If we continue to see substantial volcanic activity, I wonder what will happen to Al Gore's global warming? Well, I believe real scientists, aka paleoclimatologists as well as other disciplines of science, (as opposed to Al Gore who has been science-challenged his whole life) would tell us that would lead to global cooling. And in fact it was just a handful of hundreds of years ago that we experienced a mini ice age which was most likely induced in some part from volcanic activity. Remember, we are talking about minute changes in temperature that affect the planet quite substantially. There are many scientific reasons to believe the anthropogenic global warming religion is dying a volatile death. Before it does, I'm sure we'll hear Al Gore explain how earthquakes and volcanic activity are also caused by humanity. Of course, in the process of winning another Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking - pun intended - scientific research titled 'Anthropogenic Tectonic Activity'. We should expect another Academy Award for his work - Best actor (for histrionics) in the film category of fiction.

Global warming was obviously real. Poisoning of our planet is real. But the human-caused global warming scam is one of the greatest lies of our time. A lie perpetuated by bureaucrats who are wishing to imprint their neofeudalistic economic will on society's future. Just as they have with their current neofeudal economic policies. (It's not a scam per se as in a conspiracy. It's simply bureaucrats seeking to impose their will of what is right. That's simply what bureaucrats do. You know, like King George used to do. I'm sure Georgie also thought he was within his authority and rights to impose his will on others.) The known and unknown energy forces, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, acting upon the earth in the blink of an eye dwarfs the cumulative impact of humanity since the advent of industrialization over a hundred years ago.

If we want to guard against the effects of human-caused ecological messes in this world, then democratic government should deploy policies which benefit merit or market-based economic solutions and therefore, greater economic wealth for society while at the same time, healing our planet. Instead the solutions being ramrodded through our government are bureaucratic mandates which negatively impact economic vitality and create massive encroachment of bureaucracies which ultimately saps society's wealth and freedoms. In other words, it's more of the same policies meant to enrich the same crooks who have run our economies into the ditch. Human-based global warming is a scheme of the corporatocracy and the bureaucrat's attempt to enslave the productive assets of society by taxing society into subservience. Alternatively, a democratic solution to greater ecology is achieved through democratically enabling society's collective will to create new solutions, new economic opportunity, new employment and broad-based wealth creation. These solutions benefit society and our ecology while leading to a stable democratic government.

Remember, re our theme of volatility, as we have said many times, volatility portends a change in trend. That includes financial markets, economics, the banking crisis, volatile weather patterns or whatnot. The only question is what the new trends will be. I would bet Al Gore's Nobel Prize it will not be global warming. I think it's safe to say one trend we can be sure of is that bureaucrats like Algore won't be successfully scamming society with their neoliberal views of how the world should be. That has led to massive wealth transfer, destruction of our economic institutions, destruction of our social programs, destruction of our constitutional sovereignty and tens of millions of Americans with little economic opportunity. We've had just about enough of that.

By the way, in closing it might be interesting to note that Sinabung was also active during that prior cold spell we mentioned in the first paragraph. Coincidence? Irrelevant? Let's hope Algore includes that point in his new Nobel Prize application.

The world is seldom as it appears.

posted by TimingLogic at 5:55 AM

Thursday, September 09, 2010

President's Proposed Public Works Project Looks Like The Federal Reserve 2.0 - More Wealth Transfer For The Elitists On The Backs Of The Sovereign

The elites can't find a decent return with near zero percent interest rates and a wildly gyrating equity market. No problem. Just find another way to mooch off of the productive people in society. This proposal smells like Larry Summers. I appreciate Larry Summers as someone who is bright and capable but when that energy is channeled for his crony friends as a public servant, that's where it's time to draw the line. Regardless of where it came from, this article alludes to the fact that public works spending will need to be tied to projects which charge fees so investors can get their due return. Higher fees for your water? More toll bridges and toll roads? More fees to use public parks? This public works proposal is steeped in cronyism and corruption. It smells a lot like the original TARP program.

We have railed on this concept of public-private partnerships for years. It is a criminal transfer of public assets into private sector hands without the consent of the sovereign. It's corporatism and cronyism. It's favoritism for the privileged which acts as a tax on society. It's not democracy. Quite frankly, it's the Federal Reserve 2.0

First of all, a $50 billion public works program is a joke. The United States needs a $5 trillion public works program to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. And it should be over some extended period of decades. There are plenty of smart and qualitied people who can figure out the specifics. This is a preposterous and corrupt notion that the United States needs to use seed money from private investors to create its own bank. WTF is this? Are these politicians idiots or have they just sold out their country? We don't need a new version of the Federal Reserve to fund public works projects that will line the pockets of the rich off of the backs of the sovereign. The President's proposal is more special interest solutions serving the very few rather than democracy.

If President Obama wants to start up the The Federal National Democratic Bank of the United States of America, all the government needs to do is direct the Treasury to print enough money to fund the bank. That could be fiat money or it could be backed by silver or gold or by JuJu beads. I could really care less. What's important is that it's the people's bank and that it has severe public oversight, accountability and democratic controls as a people's bank. And that bank could print debt-free money to spend on public works projects. And for god's sake, for the howling inflation monkeys, it is not going to cause inflation. We have been advocating that the Federal Reserve do this for almost two years now and during that time all we hear is more howling while the situation becomes more dire.

This proposed plan by President Obama smells of more rot and special interest usury on the backs of the American people.

Change you can believe in.

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:55 AM

Health Care's Reformless Reform - Washington Politician's Risk Shifting Ponzi Schemes Continues As Neoliberalism Implodes

Portable health insurance is a great thing. Health insurance responsibilities dumped on the backs of a collapsing society is tyranny and fraud. Guess which one Washington political idiots passed?

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:51 AM

For-Profit Private Insurance Company Had Over One Million Law Violations.

There is something very wrong with the concept of making enormous sums of money off of health insurance. We used to have nonprofit insurance companies before the Republican party created this monster. And of course, the equally ridiculous Democrats agreed.

Insurance is a bureaucracy. All insurance companies do is administer policies. It's administration for god's sake. One more time. A-D-M-I-N-I-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N. We pay people in the government $50,000 a year to administer insurance. We pay people $8 an hour to administer your order for a Big Mac and Coke at McDonalds. How in the name of sanity and reason did CEOs and senior officials at health insurance companies ever get $400 million retirement packages and $20 million annual compensation packages for administration?

The only way to drive profits for a health insurance firm is to increase efficiency, most often at the expense of health care services and quality of care or deny coverage to consumers of health care services or jack up rates. None of these profit drivers are aligned with superior health care. This dynamic is all part of the financial industry's unsustainable bubble.

One may argue that health insurance is or is not necessary as an industry but whatever solutions society would choose, it is purely overhead. It is administrative tax on society's health. Doctors, nurses, health care professionals and support personnel are healers. They have a skill that society demands. Insurance companies on the other hand are like Wall Street. They are usury. They insert themselves in the supply chain for services from productive assets in society and extort their slice through control. And without government enforcement of competition and regulation, they have been stealing one hell of a big slice via morally-bankrupt means.

We don't even need health insurance in this country. Mathematically, it restricts the free flow of capital and creates supply & demand and therefore pricing aberrations. Or as we wrote years ago, it's a racket in the true sense of the word and that's why Warren Buffet loves owning insurance companies. There are better and cheaper methods than insurance companies that serve consumers of health care services and health care professionals. And more importantly, that would serve economically disadvantaged citizens with some modicum of human dignity. But that type of reform isn't likely to happen. So, the government ought to be incenting insurance companies to become not for profit or making economic rules which would create a vibrant market for not for profit health care to drive these corrupt beasts to change or go the way of the Dodo bird.

title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:50 AM

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

A Very Sick Equity Market

It's amazing to me how many people within the financial community rely on such idiotic measurements as sentiment to divine the future of anything. We wrote on here years before the collapse that sentiment would eventually fail. It not only failed. It collapsed. And all of the way down we had to listen to endless pablum puke about how sentiment was portending a rally. Actually, sentiment was portending doom and we got plenty of it till the Fed stepped in and gave Wall Street trillions of dollars of our money to speculate with. If the Fed hadn't done that, the market would have continued to implode regardless of sentiment. Don't expect a repeat of that for two reasons. One, Wall Street now knows the economy is not going to recover, so they may not step in to buy stocks. And two, because the Federal Reserve isn't going to have the political cover to pull such a stunt again with tens of millions of Americans suffering economic depressions.

Once again in today's environment we see the same asinine analysis. Sentiment is portending a rally. Sentiment this. Sentiment that. We've been writing for years that Wall Street is the dumb money this time around. This is a market of professionals. The consumer never came back to stocks post the 2000 collapse. This is a market where financial firms bat shares back and forth. There is no one else to shovel their shit off to when things go bad. They are left holding the bag. We saw that dynamic in spades back in 2008. Yet we get the same deluded psycho babble about sentiment today.

Sentiment and technicals are a function of fundamentals. If you understand fundamentals, sentiment is out the window. In other words, during World War II, after ten million people had been butchered, sentiment was very negative. Did the war end? Only years later after another forty million people were murdered. Sentiment was negative because fundamentals warranted it. Wall Street is endlessly ignorant.

This is a very sick market. Below is the S&P 500 ETF over the last few months. Look at the gaps all over this listless market. This is showing us that derivatives are being used to try to run the market up and down on declining participation.

Derivatives - a financial contract with no intrinsic value used primarily for speculation aka gambling.

I wonder if we could wake up some morning and the market is down 20 or 30% at the open. That's not a prediction but we have never seen this type of market in the U.S. The impossible has the chance of becoming the possible because of fundamentals.



posted by TimingLogic at 11:38 AM

Monday, September 06, 2010

A Celebration Of Labor Day Part One - CEOs Who Fired The Most Are Paid The Most

Remember, none of the CEOs who are part of this survey actually created these companies. They didn't take any risks by creating anything. They didn't really do anything other than go to Harvard to learn how to be a professional bureaucrat. CEOs are simply administrators of companies. They are bureaucrats whose primary skill is living off of the productive assets in society. Just like Wall Street. Just like politicians. And given they think like bureaucrats, they are going to pay themselves handsomely for failure. Just like Wall Street crooks did when American taxpayers bailed out their systemic incompetence. Just like systemically incompetent Washington politicians are doing with the lobbyist bubble. Now being a bureaucrat isn't a bad thing. Every bureaucracy needs them. They were especially popular in the Soviet Union. Which, by the way, is beginning to look a lot like the United States with bureaucrats in business, on Wall Street and in Washington gaining unprecedented control without the consent of the people.

In Japan, CEOs who fire large numbers of employees are considered failures. In fact, one time when I was in Japan, there was a headline story of a embattled CEO at a major firm who committed suicide or seppuku because he dishonored his responsibility as a leader. Now that's a bit extreme but I'm simply making a point. Japan is far from a perfect society and has plenty of their own issues to work on but it is a society which has some modicum of concern for A More Perfect Union or the common good. And there is a code of honor in that responsibility. In the leaderless United States, Wall Street bureaucrats cheer mass layoffs because it fuels the profit bubble and their personal greed.

How do we minimize the number of bureaucrats and the impact of bureaucrats on society? That is a lengthy topic. The list is endless. But the most obvious way is to reduce concentration of power in business and in government - ban investment banking, mergers & acquisitions (In other words, send Wall Street packing permanently.), bust up large corporations and restore State's Rights as a bulwark against Washington idiots. How about make all news media nonprofit so the bureaucrat never gains control of our news. That way, anyone who wants to be in the news business is in it because it is a virtuous endeavor and a passion not because a bureaucrat is driven by power, greed and control. Incent the creators of capital to keep their businesses rather than sell them to the "investor class" where bureaucrats are then installed to run the organizations. If the private creators and founders are personally invested in the process of capital creation rather than allowing a bureaucrat to administer the company, the role of the bureaucrat is minimized. Or grab your favorite drink and just kick back and watch the bureaucracy eventually collapse as happens to every single major bureaucracy in history, without exception. There are endless ways to reduce the impact of the bureaucrat.

I think it's fair to say crony capitalism, or capitalism as its current """leaders""" know it, is just about dead. How did it die? Well, its """leaders""" killed it. In other words, it died from the inside. Just like Rome. Just like the Soviet Union. Just as any major bureaucracy run by bureaucrats for their own avarice and desires of control always does.

But hey, it's not so bad that the worst CEOs pay themselves the most. At least they were able to pay themselves handsomely for that new yacht while you grovel in the unemployment line because of their incompetence. It's the free market. It all works out in the end. You get dog shit for dinner and they get tea and crumpets. Well, that is, until those eating dog shit decide not to produce any more tea and crumpets. Then what is a bureaucrat to do?

Title link also here.
posted by TimingLogic at 12:02 AM

A Celebration of Labor Day Part Two - The Consideration Of An Economic Constitution

I guess the first order of business is if you are relatively new to this blog, I would encourage you to read the post we first put up in August of 2008 and then reposted on Labor Day of 2009. Some are finally starting to gain a realization of what we have often discussed on here be it our kaizen or lean methods manufacturing posts of years ago or countless other posts including the aforementioned previous Labor Day post.

Now, let's continue on to this year's Labor Day post.

I read this anonymous remark some time ago. It is profoundly simple yet elegant in its truth.

"Seems that sometimes we get caught up in believing that the 'government' or the 'officials' that administer the government are like doctors - who are allowed to inspect and test and diagnose our ailments and then are free as they please to prescribe remedies. We have to remember that they are merely professional politicians who have learned to manipulate whole populations."

Would you allow an anonymous plumber to listen to your private phone conversations? Would you allow an anonymous lawyer to decide your economic fate? Would you allow BP's CEO to tax you at whatever rate he deems appropriate then to spend the money how he sees fit? Because that is exactly what are essentially anonymous politicians of unbridled arrogance do. They are take and they take and they take. Most often they steal from the middle class or poor and give to the rich. Which is exactly how our economy has worked for decades and at numerous times throughout the United State's history including through the acts of class-based indentured servitude, the African slave trade, the labor abuse of Asian immigrants and the current dynamic of undocumented workers to name a few.

What is Labor Day other than really American citizen's day? Unless you write your own paycheck, you work for someone else. Often another laborer, such as a CEO or bureaucrat, but these laborers often seemingly have no conscience. Are not the vast majority of Americans laborers whether they are teachers, doctors, engineers, servicemen, plumbers, retail associates or whatnot? The concept of self-reliance is constructive and has virtuous qualities but frankly it is limited in its practicality - once humanity moved from a frontier agrarian society to a socialized or industrialized world, self-reliance became a matter of relativism. There may be fifty people in the United States that are truly self-reliant, although millions convince themselves they are through the ego's arrogance. No one truly has achieved economic success or some modicum of self-sufficiency without benefiting from a reliance on society. Labor day is really a celebration of being an American and the respect and democratic value we should have for all of our fellow citizens. And frankly, all of the people on earth.

Let's stimulate the mind with an update to one of our previous posts regarding the topic of an economic constitution. I would say our founding fathers were accurate with most of what they accomplished. Especially given the times. The real issue in some regards is that they didn't go far enough. There are obviously many reasons for that. Maybe the unforeseen rise is multinational corporations and the associated corruption of politicians and their hijacking of the rule of law or the corrupt Supreme Court ruling in the United States that granted corporations the rights of persons or countless other dynamics. It was impossible to envision every possible heinous act of evil and place it into the Constitution.

Jefferson, for one, remarked an updated constitution every so often would be beneficial. His definition of every so often was every twenty or so years if memory serves me well. We have well surpassed twenty years and during that time our Constitution has seen limited updates or amendments. In many regards that's a plus. In some regards it is not.

Thomas Paine, a man who is almost always portrayed inaccurately by the self-serving status quo, was so radical in his desire for a new type of society and democracy, that his views were never consistent with the majority of founding fathers. Paine was a radical for freedom. Many of the wealthy founding fathers were uncomfortable with Paine's perspective on freedoms and democracy. Yet Paine clearly understood government was a necessary force in maintaining freedom. Paine argued for a democratic society which cared for the least among its citizens yet provided unprecedented freedoms through very vigorous and involved self-rule. Paine railed against slavery, religious fanatics and the tyranny of one man over another in any circumstance. Paine's view of democracy is a vision I respect more than any other American political voice from that time in our history. His disdain of bigotry, racism, injustices against women, ideology, unreasoned religious fanaticism, timeless corruption of politicians & power and desire for a truly democratic society with equal rights were so new that he was literally centuries ahead of his time. Paine's literary desire for freedom was considered sedition by the English state.

Above all, this self-taught man may have simply been a great humanitarian - not something a leaderless Washington has any claim to in today's world. Not too many of the political idiots today claiming an affinity to Thomas Paine actually know the first thing about the man. And I doubt more than a handful, if any at all, would gain his admiration. But it's just part of the manipulative baby-kissing syndrome that afflicts all power mongers and bureaucrats.

Anyhow, I believe it would possibly be beneficial to have a succinct document either incorporated as an addendum into our current constitution or complementary to it in a standalone form to protect our citizen's economic rights from the timeless desires of those who wish to be our masters; the bureaucrat and the politician. Over the two hundred plus years of our nation's existence, we have finally achieved some modicum of consciousness as it pertains to civil equality and democracy within society itself; although it will clearly never be perfect. That equality was achieved generally because virtuous and altruistic people were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to shove society in a direction that would mandate changes in our government. Yet our economic model has regressed into such a neoliberal feudalistic paradigm that it embraces none of our democratic ideals nor any of the equalities we have achieved as a democratic society. How does serfdom in a corporate office with little to no individual liberties or free speech within that organization embrace anything closely resembling democracy? Yet our President seemingly delivers a consistent message that a college degree for everyone is the answer to our economic woes - an opinion of complete nonsense. Remember, our economic model should serve our democratic ideals and virtues as a free people. We are not a capitalism. We are a democracy. Capitalism is not required for a market-based economy. Nor is it required for democracy. If capitalism is better than the other choices, so be it. But it must be democratic capitalism or American-style capitalism. Not the corporate capitalism ruled by robber barons that we have morphed into time and again in our history. We need to once again rid ourselves of modern day robber barons.

Whether we ever actually have a written economic constitution, we do have an economic rule of law with child labor protections, workplace safety laws, corporate environmental laws, etc,. But unlike any economic laws we have in place today, an economic constitution could not be changed, repealed or overturned by corrupt politicians and their corporate masters or by political ideologues. Crooks can attack written laws as they have, but attacking a basic human right contained within a constitution has been much harder to accomplish over our history. Repealing the First Amendment hasn't happened yet. Repealing the laws regulating our banking system has happened systematically and continually over decades.

So what might be contained in a democratic economic constitution? Well, I'll give you a few things to think about but you should really consider your own ideas. This topic is going to define our future possibly more so than any other. Whether anyone yet realizes it or not is irrelevant.

Maybe a first issue to tackle with regards to an economic constitution is that a credit-based monetary system artificially limits the amount of money and trade in an economy thus creating systemically and artificially high unemployment rates. This dynamic leads to racism and major pockets of underprivileged Americans. Add in a private banking system and it doubles the negative consequences and impact on artificially high unemployment and economic opportunity.

A gold-backed banking system in itself does nothing to resolve this dynamic. It just makes the problem of private banking less obtuse. We still leave the arbitrary decision of who gains access to society's capital in the hands of private for-profit bureaucrats and not in the hands of democracy or a country's citizens. Access to society's capital should first be in the hands of democracy with an intent of human capital development. That may be by some form capitalism or it may be something else. Democratic human development cannot be addressed through private for-profit banking whether it is backed by gold or by dog poop. The drive to return to the gold standard is driven in large part by a herd mentality in some attempt to bring legitimacy back to banking. But it does nothing to solve the underlying problem of democratic access to society's resources and ultimately democratic human development and sustainability. A gold-backed dollar and banking system allowed criminals to destroy our economy more than once in times gone by.

On some level it's almost as if the gold advocates are playing right into the hands of the status quo, for a return to the gold standard at this time would be devastating to our economy yet would clearly benefit Wall Street and the very wealthy. I can assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt, a return to the gold standard today would lead to a depression as far as the eye can see. It would restrict the access to money needed to rebuild our economy but would benefit those who have accumulated wealth today. Wealth that was often achieved through shifting their risk onto the backs of the poor and middle class. As we wrote years ago, the gold standard is not the answer for our economic issues. So, what type of economic bill of rights or economic constitutional rights would permanently mitigate these dynamics?

An additional issue that might be addressed in an economic constitution is that every American willing to participate in our economy should have access to a living wage. This will draw howling from economic ideologues and members of the status quo who cannot seem to see beyond the end of their nose. Some will argue it infringes upon the all-knowing free market. This from a profession, economics, who was exuberant right before the world collapsed and seemingly has no idea how to build a mathematical framework for working markets. They and many other boobirds will believe a living wage is sacrilegious. An afront to the all-knowing market god. That god is a myth and a legend worshipped by ideology. Why don't we let the bureaucrats worry about manipulating our politics, destroying our banking system and teaching ivory-towered theories at Harvard's finance and economics programs while the rest of us get this economy back on track by doing what works.

A living wage is clearly achievable. Whether an ideologue can figure out how to do it within the framework of a mathematical construct of a merit or market-based economy is irrelevant. If I can figure out how to do it, it can be done. I'm not Albert Einstein. And regardless of the howling that would come from bureaucrats, it does not mean we would have unmitigated inflation nor does it mean the price of all goods in the United States would explode upward. Another myth perpetuated by the clueless and ideologues who think have a far too limited view and don't understand productivity, best practices lean methods or what drives advancement in economic efficiency. And I think we speak with some level of knowledge on this topic given our kaizen or lean manufacturing posts were favorably highlighted and reviewed by one of the largest manufacturing consultancy firms in the world. By the way, it is not a firm of bureaucrats, financial ideologues or economists.

This quote below has come across my blog numerous times over the years. When America was the mightiest economic engine the world had ever seen, before the boobirds gained control, we accomplished it under this precept cherished at that time. How might such a dynamic be accomplished and included into an economic constitution of today's world?

"We are justly proud of the high wage rates which prevail throughout our country and jealous of any interference with them by the products of the cheaper labor of other countries. To maintain this condition, to strengthen our control of home markets and, above all, to broaden our opportunities in foreign markets where we must compete with the products of other industrial nations, we should welcome and encourage every influence tending to increase the efficiency of our productive processes" --Henry Towne, President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1911

In closing, isn't it ironic that the financial community and their political lackies are recommending austerity once they have stolen everything from society? Government cuts to social programs, education, assistance for those with developmental disabilities and the like is the order and part of the elixir needed to solve our crisis. A preposterous and even criminal notion. Yet these same thugs say nothing of endless war or corruption or subversion of democracy or our economy for their self-interest that has left our society broke. The thieves now want to protect the value of the money they have stolen. The gold advocates are playing right into the hands of the crooks. Yes we need honest money. Gold does not resolve this dynamic. It's lipstick on the pig. And, frankly it's unnecessary. We need a public banking system designed to serve society's development. One that is managed by the people and not by Washington crooks. And if we can't reform capitalism to work more consistently under the guise of democracy, sustainability and human development, then we should start tinkering with new ideas from creative minds. We've mentioned a few on here. But the creative minds with these new ideas aren't going to be financial commenteurs, the mainstream media and bureaucrats. It's going to be the productive people of society who have always made our economic engine hum and who built this country to greatness in the first place. In order for that to happen, a democratic economic authority needs to be returned to the citizens of this country.

Well, I suppose we could go on forever but a few examples will suffice to make the point of what a democratic economy and unalienable economic rights could and should look like. Our economic model lags our social awareness and the general consciousness of society. That is because a handful of bureaucrats continue to apply the same imperialistic, empire-driven controlling economic servitude that has defined economies since the creation of modern man. And how do we know this? Because when bureaucrats are not bound by the rule of law, that is the order of the day we see in the global economy today. In other words, when a free society of expanding awareness of what is virtuous and just requires a living wage, requires environmental protection laws, requires child labor laws, requires economic rights for underprivileged and requires workplace safety laws, to name a few, said bureaucrats will do anything to subvert society's expanding enlightenment by stealing society's capital and seeking out economic servitude where there are no democratic rights regarding a living wage, no environmental safety laws to stop them from dumping mercury out their back door, constant exploitation of child labor, exploitation of unsafe work environments producing often poisonous, cheap and unsafe products and exploitation or bribes or manipulation of anyone and anything that money will afford them the opportunity to control. That's how we know.

We need a new economic model. And we need it right now. It's time to vote out all of the corporatist crooks in Washington and replace them with public servants who will do the will of a free and democratic society. And the first order of business is a revamped economy with rules that can never again be subverted by anti-democratic forces of evil and tyranny. One easy way to accomplish that would be via an economic constitution.

Happy Labor Day.
posted by TimingLogic at 12:01 AM