Excessive lending is the only way to maintain the living standards of the vast bulk of the population at a time when wealth is being concentrated in the hands of an elite.
The amount by which the elite has benefited is startling, and illustrates the problem with lightly regulated free markets: the rich get much richer while the rest do not get richer at all.
Remember, Jesus said it's harder for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't sell your soul for money or riches. Riches fly away with the wind.Debt keeps the rich elite rich.
Excessive lending is the only way to maintain the... more
A new study has linked women's financial status with the proportion of boys and girls they can expect to give birth to. It has revealed that wealthier mothers tend to have more sons while hard-up women produce more daughters.
Is a baby's sex determined just as much by lifestyle and environment as it is by genes?A new study has linked women's financial status with the proportion of boys and girls... more
About 80% of this is pure bunk. He’s completely missing the boat on manufacturing. He offers statements from the media narrative (6 million US jobs being shipped to China) without any evidence. The only study I’ve seen showed about 300,000 over a 7 year period. During the period of time in question China lost 15% of its manufacturing jobs. If we shipped the jobs to China someone should put a tracer on them, cause they didn’t arrive. Every one of the top 20 industrial nations has lost jobs over the last 10 years. A total of 31 million factory jobs were lost while increasing output 30%. It’s called productivity.
Two things are happening. Manufacturers are setting up shop to produce close to the market. The idea that anyone will ship cars across an ocean for long is crazy. If American based auto companies won’t do it, the Chinese, Koreans etc will. Second there are many jobs moving from manufacturing to the service sector. Manufacturers outsource everything from landscaping to corporate jet service. So some of the “lost” manufacturing jobs are now in the service sector. When EDS bought the IT operations of GM in the 80s it moved tens of thousands of jobs from manufacturing to services overnight. But nothing happened except the bank account where the payroll checks were drawn.
He’s roughly right on the savings rate. But there is a better overall measure – velocity of money. Velocity went down (in part due to savings which works like parked money) so the money supply had to go up to stay in equilibrium."
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Enjoy! Now go back to thinking what you thought was "The Truth" about all that....
LOL!I don't analyze the Manufacturing Industry... but a friend of mine does, John Layden.... more
What a nasty jury that must have been... Boy, did THEY send a message....
A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.
Outside the courtroom, she called the $1.92 million figure "kind of ridiculous" but expressed resignation over the decision.
"There's no way they're ever going to get that," said Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from the central Minnesota city of Brainerd. "I'm a mom, limited means, so I'm not going to worry about it now."
Boy, they sure showed HER .... how ridiculous a fine can be. I wonder what her actual net worth is... will the RIAA take her home, her car, her kids and garnishee 100% of her pay for the next three lifetimes?
"But some analysts said the price cut signaled a long-awaited recognition that the music industry needed to adjust its business model to fit a world where music can be sold or copied song by song. That might mean the industry needs to sell more music for less to make the same amount of money."
brought me a new idea: what the music industry is missing is that the songs themselves need to be priced to market. A popular good new song might be sold for $1.50 to $2.00 for a few weeks or a month, but when it slips down the charts, its "market value," hence selling price, should be racheted down, too. Mediocre songs by mediocre writers and singers might go for 25 cents, while popular classics might average around a dollar a cut.
maybe they should have fined her what the songs were worth on the open market... their lost profit, maybe.... about $6.00...?
crap.What a nasty jury that must have been... Boy, did THEY send a message....
A... more
If you don't want to protect your cards with a stainless steel wallet that is!Just in case you weren't aware of it....
Pay close attention to this video!... more
OMG, those wonderful hedge funds were all so sexy with their “rich people only” requirements and secretive investments. But when Bernard Madoff finally admitted his hedge fund was just one big lie and a giant Ponzi scheme, his investors had lost over $65 billion. Five months later, very little of his victims’ money has been found. Ooops!
But our very own Secret, Super-Duper Professional Accountant Team has been working hard in an undercover investigation of every tiny, itsy-bitsy detail of this horrible financial web. And lo and behold, they've just found some money that has been hidden away in that Ponzi-Scheme Hedge Fund! Yes indeedy, the financial figures are looking ever-better, and our two Super-Duper Accountant Investigators are goin’ to celebrate their glorious achievement by having a little drink! Or maybe two. Or just maybe more….
Includes a number of very funny pictures and a hilarious 30 sec. short film.OMG, those wonderful hedge funds were all so sexy with their “rich people only”... more
Just like you, banks and governments are watching the world economy spin out of control…and they don’t have a clue about what’s happening or what to do about it.
Everything these so-called experts predicted was going to happen hasn’t happened. And what’s happening can’t be explained by their “tried and true” theories.
Think about it:
Market swings of 300 points used to be called “wild.” Now, daily rides of 600 to 700 (even 1,000 points) barely make the Wall Street Journal’s front page.
You’d expect gold (the only real “safe haven”) to be shooting through the roof in a market like this. But gold – against all expectations – has done anything but.
The U.S. Government hands out $700 billion in freshly printed dollars, devaluing the entire stock of American debt… and the dollar, against all odds, goes up.
Banks take billions in government loans to free up credit, but instead of lending the money, they use it to buy other banks. Are the inmates in charge of the prison?
You see, for the past 65 years or so (since Bretton Woods), everyone has operated on the same assumptions: Free markets behave rationally and are self-correcting.
But now, all the old “rules of money” have been trashed.
They simply don’t work anymore and probably never will again.
And things are only getting worse…The Old Rules of Money No Longer Work
Just like you, banks and governments are... more
JPMorgan Chase says that its potential losses related to Madoff are "pretty close to zero." But what some angry European investors want to know is when the bank cut its exposure to Mr Madoff and why?
As early as 2006, the bank had started offering investors a way to leverage their bets on the future performace of two hedge funds that invested with Madoff. To protect itself from the resulting risk, the bank put $250 million of its own money into those funds
BUT the bank suddenly began pulling its millions out of those funds in early autumn, just MONTHS BEFORE MADOFF WAS ARRESTED, according to accounts from Europe and New York that were subsequently confirmed by the bank. The bank did not notify investors of its move, and several of them are furious that it protected itself byt left the holding notes that the bank itself now says are probably worthless
...given the turbulent times, many though that the bank urgently needed to raise cash. That seemed the only way to explain why the bank would pull out of a fund that was up 5% when other market indexes were down 30%.
Some investors now note that Madoff maintained several accounts with JPMorgan, and wonder if the parent bank saw trouble brewing in those accounts and got its London affiliate out of the fund before the storm hit. "It is routine for the bank to look into your chicking account if you apply for a loan so why couldn't they look into your account if someone else applies for a loan whose risks are tied up with you?"
Overall, it seems to be that JPMorgan and Chase seemed to have known early on that something was wrong with the funds with Madoff and pulled out. Do you think that they should've taken the responsibility to tell other people who were involved other than their affiliates?
For more details, read the ENTIRE article at the linkJPMorgan Chase says that its potential losses related to Madoff are "pretty close to... more
The New York Times Co. said Wednesday that fourth-quarter earnings plunged 48 percent and online sales fell for the first time as the recession depressed spending by advertisers. The results still beat analyst estimates, and its shares rose nearly 7 percent.
The Times also announced it has retained investment firm Goldman Sachs to help explore a sale of its 17.8 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team, Fenway Park, a portion of a cable sports network and other properties.
The Times company, which publishes the Times, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and 16 other daily newspapers, earned $27.6 million, or 19 cents a share, in the October-December period, compared with $53 million, or 37 cents per share, in the same quarter of 2007.
Excluding various one-time charges, earnings totaled 36 cents a share, above the 27 cents per share that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected.
For the full year, the Times reported a net loss of $57.8 million, or 40 cents a share, compared with net income of $208.7 million, or $1.45 per share, in 2007. Sales fell 7.7 percent to $2.95 billion.
Will the NY times become an Online news source?The New York Times Co. said Wednesday that fourth-quarter earnings plunged 48 percent... more
America needs to listen to the ones who predicted our economic crisis.
The housing bubble burst was foretold!
Now listen to why it did and what our country has to do to prevent it from happening again.
This will require we have smaller government and no more bailouts.
Obama, don't try to fix a phony money problem.
America's wealth is phony.
Listen for yourself to the video and the ones with sense who predicted what would happen.America needs to listen to the ones who predicted our economic crisis.
The housing... more
NEW YORK – The many Bernard Madoff investors who withdrew money from their accounts over the years are now wrestling with an ethical and legal quandary. What they thought were profits was likely money stolen from other clients in what prosecutors are calling the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Now, they are confronting the possibility they may have to pay some of it back.
Lawyers for investors have been warning clients to do some tough math before they apply for any funds set aside for the victims, and figure out whether they were a winner or loser in the scheme.
Hundreds and maybe thousands of investors in Madoff's funds have been withdrawing money from their accounts for many years. In many cases, those investors have withdrawn far more than their principal investment.
"I had a call yesterday from a guy who said, 'I've taken out more money then I originally put in, but I still had $1 million left with Madoff. Should I file a $1 million claim?'" said Steven Caruso, a New York attorney specializing in securities and investment fraud.
"I'm hard-pressed to give advice in that situation," Caruso said.Apparantly not everyone "lost" inthis scheme ...
NEW YORK – The many Bernard... more
Whether one is starting a new business or buying an existing business, there is almost always the problem of having enough capital to operate the business. Even a profitable business that does not have enough funds can get into trouble.Whether one is starting a new business or buying an existing business, there is almost... more
Speaking from the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Pres.-Elect Obama announced more cabinet nominees. Today he nominated: Mary Schapiro to SEC Chairman; Dan Tarullo to Fed. Reserve Board Member; Gary Gensler as Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chariman. Mr. Obama stated that regulatory reform will be the top priority of his administration.
SUSAN McCABE liked to go all out for Christmas. Presents for friends and 17 relatives: high-end cameras for adults, Nintendo Wii for the children. On Christmas Eve, she proudly treated the immediate family to dinner at romantic white tablecloth restaurants in Manhattan. Sticker shock? Ms. McCabe, who sold eco-friendly technology, wouldn’t blink twice.
But in September, the start-up company she worked for went belly up.
A restaurant dinner? All those presents?
“Out of the question,” said Ms. McCabe, who is scrambling to make the rent on her Manhattan apartment. “And that really bothers me.”
Are you having to, or have you decided to scale down this holiday season?SUSAN McCABE liked to go all out for Christmas. Presents for friends and 17 relatives:... more
VC2 producer Carlos Aguilar has heard about the bargains across the Mexico Border but in this pod he'll put those rumors to the test. Carlos will get his teeth cleaned in Tijuana, get gas like a gringo and find out just how munch money you can save by crossing the boarder.VC2 producer Carlos Aguilar has heard about the bargains across the Mexico Border but... more
Discretionary zoning and deal-making with developers have become the norm and municipalities are increasingly using money tucked away in special funds to avoid going to taxpayers for borrowing approval.Discretionary zoning and deal-making with developers have become the norm and... more
Analysts Datamonitor claim that free banking is on its way out in only a matter of time, which means being charged for taking money out at cash machines and cheques.
What is you feeling on this?Analysts Datamonitor claim that free banking is on its way out in only a matter of... more
