News:

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice: for they shall be filled. Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord.

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AGelbert

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🚩 Stock Market 💥 ROUT 🌠 continues.
« Reply #75 on: March 09, 2023, 05:29:56 pm »
🚩 Stock Market 💥 ROUT 🌠 continues.
           
« Last Edit: March 09, 2023, 05:35:54 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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FRIDAY, MAR 10, 2023 - 12:49 PM

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com

Buffett , Buybacks, & Who Really 😈🎩 Benefits

SNIPPETS:

As Mr. Buffett states, buybacks done on a value-accretive basis benefit shareholders. However, that has not happened since the turn of the century.

Mostly Not Value-Accretive

“Over the past five years, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, big U.S. companies have spent $3.9 trillion repurchasing their own stock. ... ...

Stock buybacks by companies in the S&P 500 are projected to top $1 trillion in 2023 for the first time in a calendar year, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. ... ...

“A new study, “Share Repurchases on Trial,” by accounting and finance professors Nicholas Guest of Cornell University, S.P. Kothari of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Parth Venkat of the University of Alabama, analyzes the stock returns of thousands of companies from 1988-2020, comparing those that repurchased shares against firms that didn’t, adjusting for their size and other factors. In the year of a repurchase, companies that did large or frequent buybacks had slightly lower—not higher—returns. Over longer periods, their returns were indistinguishable.” – Jason Zweig

Clearly, if there is no real benefit to higher returns, then the buybacks were not value-accretive to shareholders. Which then fosters the question, why do they continue to do it?

Who Really Benefits

Share buybacks only return money to those individuals who sell their stock. This is an open market transaction, so if Apple (AAPL) buys back some of its outstanding stock, the only people who receive any capital are those who sold their shares.

So, who are the ones mostly selling their shares?

It’s the 😈🎩 insiders, of course, as changes in wage structures since the turn of the century became heavily dependent on stock-based compensation. Insiders often sell shares “given” to them as part of their overall compensation structure to convert them into actual wealth. As the Financial Times previously penned:

🦀 Corporate executives give several reasons for stock buybacks but none of them has close to the explanatory power of this simple truth: Stock-based instruments make up the majority of their pay and in the short-term buybacks drive up stock prices.”

A report on a study by the Securities & Exchange Commission found the same:

SEC research found that many corporate executives sell significant amounts of their own shares after their companies announce stock buybacks, Yahoo Finance reports.

What is clear is that the misuse and abuse of share buybacks to manipulate earnings and reward insiders has become problematic. ... ...

Of course, that is probably why the SEC had banned stock buybacks until 1990, as they were a form of stock market manipulation.

Full article:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/buffett-buybacks-who-really-benefits

« Last Edit: March 10, 2023, 03:21:22 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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🚨 Thar She Blows!
« Reply #77 on: March 10, 2023, 07:21:13 pm »
March 10, 2023

                                    
« Last Edit: March 10, 2023, 07:35:07 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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AGelbert NOTE: don't confuse the "Free Money era" mentioned in this article, that resulted in billions of dollars to being irresponsibly "invested" by 😈🎩 corporate greedballs, with the Wall Street pejorative "free money" low and middle income Americans rightfully received to get by during the Pandemic. That was JUSTIFIED money, not "Free Money era money". Wolf is talking about billions of dollars scammed from the Federal Government (e.g. "forgiven" loans to high income professionals and corporations PLUS Government bailouts to Airlines, Big Oil, etc. on the backs of we-the-taxpayers).

For those who don't know what 😒 Preferred "Stock" is, all you need to know is that it is nothing but a type of "secured" LOAN to a corporation that pays an agreed amount of interest. Unlike a share of "Common" stock, which actually IS Stock, because it goes up or down in price according to stock market buys and sells, and can also pay some, or less to 😈 nada, dividends every now and then, Preferred "Stock" is NOT, strictly speaking, "Stock". In the case of SVB Financial, those with Preffered "Stock" came out "better than nothing", though not completely unscathed. That does NOT mean that buying "Preferred Stock" is 100% secure. The fact that the financial establishment played name games with that interest paying LOAN called "Preferred Stock" should warn you that caveat emptor is sine qua non when you have dealings in the financial world ruled by Social Darwinist crooks and liars.

Graphics by yours truly.

Mar 11, 2023 By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET


SVB Financial had Investment-Grade 😇 Credit Ratings   (Moody’s, S&P) 😈 up to 🌠 Collapse 😠. Got Slashed in 🔨 One Fell Swoop to 💩 Default

Not learned a thing since the Financial Crisis. Relying on ratings, preferred stock holders found themselves bailed in, bondholders got crushed.
SNIPPET:

But for investors, it would have been nice to get prior warning from the credit rating agencies that this stuff is maybe not investment grade after all, but junk that needs to come with high yields, before getting thrown off the cliff.



In terms of bonds, for example, the $650 million 1.8% senior unsecured notes, issued in October 2021, also during the Free Money era, plunged from 86 cents on the dollar on Wednesday to 37 cents on the dollarat the close on Friday. ... ...

Full article:
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/03/11/svb-financial-had-investment-grade-credit-ratings-from-moodys-and-sp-up-to-collapse-then-ratings-got-slashed-in-one-fell-swoop-to-default/

Reality based COMMENTS:

Dang Mar 11, 2023 at 11:35 pm
Your article is both poignant and a sad commentary about my ability to ascertain value vs price, a fundamental precept of the higher business education industry.I could search appropriate bonds in the AAA category up until about 2000 or so with confidence that the rating agencies had correctly categorized the risk of the likelihood that the borrower would pay the money back. The street is selling the myth on a mound of lies. A former champ selling themselves on the corner.

The pillars of the community are pathological liars and criminals. Enticing people into overvalued securities for the vig.

We’re not talking about the wolf of the wall street dumpster.

We are talking about the private network of debt rating agencies who were selected by the Federal Government to price they’re trillions of dollars of issuance. The bond market went from the rock of Gibraltar to the rock that weights down the body.

We deserve a Postal Service bank.

Depth Charge Mar 11, 2023 at 7:14 pm
The entire financial system is one giant fraud. Moody’s was also rating all of the subprime junk last housing bubble at AAA. They should have been shut down.

Beyond this, the banks don’t even have capital reserve requirements anymore. And there’s no more “mark to market,” either. All of this after the 2008 crisis.

Nothing was learned alright. In fact, they decided to double down and go even harder.

Ambrose Bierce Mar 12, 2023 at 12:08 pm
So why aren’t the bank reserves available for SVB? Isn’t that the point of creating “excess” reserves. There should be a Wolf Street for Dummies. I don’t get any of this, including the SVB stock symbol listed on the Stuttgart exchange. Why is the financial stock separate from the bank stock? Apparently one business with assets waning is Landvest, a real estate and forestry management company, that’s not a tech startup. And what does all this have to do with Silvergate, in La Jolla, Ca., which has exposure to crypto and is also on the ropes? Is that what contagion means?

Wolf Richter > Ambrose Bierce Mar 12, 2023 at 12:28 pm
1. “reserves” = cash that banks put on deposit at the Fed. Only the Fed calls this bank cash “reserves,” the banks call them “cash” or “interest-earning cash” or similar on their books.

2. Borrowing from the Fed at the “Discount Window.”

SVB probably withdrew all of its cash deposits at the Fed (reserves) to fund the withdrawals by its own depositors. Close to the end, it had no cash at the Fed (no reserves)

Borrowing at the Discount Window might have occurred (this is not disclosed 🙊 by bank, and we 🤷‍♂️ don’t know), but the Fed requires that a bank is solvent in order to use the DW, and this bank was deemed insolvent, so it couldn’t borrow at the DW anymore, if it ever could.   

SVB had subsidiaries in the UK, Germany, China, and other countries. Some of them floated some of their shares at the local exchanges. For example, the SVB entity floated shares in the UK, and those share stopped trading on Friday, the BoE is going to declare the entity insolvent and shut it down. I don’t think Germany has taken that measure yet. The China entity, which is a joint venture with a  Chinese firm seems to be still up and running.

Depth Charge Mar 11, 2023 at 7:20 pm
This entire “system” in the US has morphed into a rigged shell game where the rich have hijacked the government and are taking everybody else for a ride. And the moment one of their little Ponzis blows up, they cry for a taxpayer bailout and get it .

I am noticing more and more comments on social media sites like Twitter and Youtube where people are fed up with bailouts and are crying for all of these people/companies to burn . People love that SVB blew up and a bunch of rich people potentially lost billions. Eat your losses, 🐷🎩 pigs.

Nissanfan > Depth Charge Mar 11, 2023 at 7:30 pm
Did they lose though, or it is simply an average Joe with workplace 401Ks managed by financial groups?

Top 😈🎩 institutional owners of SVB:
The Vanguard Group, Inc. 10.85%
SSgA Funds Management, Inc. 5.22%
BlackRock Fund Advisors 5.18%
Alecta Pension Insurance Mutual 4.46%

Those funds will still collect their maintenance fees as if nothing happened.

Lone Coyote Mar 11, 2023 at 9:04 pm
Already seeing 🐍 talking heads on twitter (including an 🐉 elected representative from California) crying for bailouts .
I was too young to get what happened in 2008 at the time but if it happens again I will lose the last bit of hope in the financial system (assuming I still have it in the first place). aaagh

kramartini Mar 12, 2023 at 5:58 am
But in the Financial Crisis, the government got all of its TARP money back, plus interest , plus profit on the exercise or sale of warrants . The so-called bailouts were really a special tax levied on strong banks (the majority) to clean up the mess at a handful of weak banks.

crazytown > kramartini Mar 12, 2023 at 10:31 am
😠 BS. It was a handout to save a bunch of crooks who should have been sent to prison instead of given a blank check by the even more crooked treasury department at the time. Too big to fail should not exist.


Wolf Richter > kramartini Mar 12, 2023 at 10:24 am
Tarp was peanuts compared to what the Fed did. The Fed did all the bailouts that made Tarp, 🎩 Buffett, and all investors a ton of money. It did it by 😈 printing trillions of dollars and buying assets with it, driving up asset prices, including those of private-label MBS that had collapsed. Without  that, Tarp would have shown steep losses, as would have all other 🎩😈 investors.
😒👉
« Last Edit: March 12, 2023, 09:13:03 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Is the 🐘 Republican 👿 Threat really "Unthinkable"? 😕
« Reply #79 on: March 13, 2023, 02:41:57 pm »
Letters from an American

March 12, 2023 By HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

At 6:15 this evening, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg announced that Secretary Yellen has signed off on measures to enable the FDIC to fully protect everyone who had money in Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, and Signature Bank, New York. They will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. None of the losses associated with this resolution, the statement said, “will be borne by the taxpayer.”

But, it continued, “Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.”

The statement ended by assuring Americans that “the U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry. Those reforms combined with today's actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors' savings remain safe.”

It’s been quite a weekend.

On Friday, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed in the largest bank failure since 2008. At the end of December 2022, SVB appears to have had about $209 billion in total assets and about $175 billion in deposits. This made SVB the sixteenth largest bank in the U.S., big in its sector but small compared with the more than $3 trillion JPMorgan Chase. This is the first bank failure of the Biden presidency (while Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that he had not heard of any bank failures during his father’s presidency, there were sixteen, eight of which happened before the pandemic). In fact, generally, a few banks fail every year; it is an oddity that none failed in 2021 or 2022.

The failure of SVB created shock waves for three reasons. First, SVB was the major bank for technology start-ups, so it involved much of a single sector of the economy. Second, only about $8 billion of the $173 billion worth of deposits in SVB were less than the $250,000 that the FDIC insures, meaning that the companies who had made those deposits might not get their money back quickly and thus might not be able to make payrolls, sparking a larger crisis. Third, there was concern that the problems that plagued SVB might cause other banks to fail, as well.

What seems to have happened, though, appears to be specific to SVB. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine explained it most clearly:

As the bank for start-ups, which have a lot of cash from investors and the initial public offering of stock, SVB had lots of deposits. But start-up companies don’t need much in the way of loans because they’ve just gotten so much cash and they don’t yet have fixed assets. So, rather than balancing deposits with loans that fluctuate with interest rates and thus keep a bank on an even keel, SVB’s directors took a gamble that the Federal Reserve would not raise interest rates. They invested in long-term Treasury bonds that paid better interest rates than short-term securities. But when, in fact, interest rates went up, the value of those long-term bonds sank. 

For most banks, higher interest rates are good news because they can charge more for loans. But for SVB, they hurt.

Then, because SVB concentrated on start-ups, they had another problem. Start-ups are also hurt by rising interest rates because they tend to promise to deliver returns in the long term, which is fine so long as interest rates stay steadily low, as they have been now for years. But as interest rates go up, investors tend to like faster returns than most start-ups can deliver. They take their money to places that are going to see returns sooner. For SVB, that meant their depositors began to need some of that money they had dumped into the bank and started to withdraw their deposits.

So SVB sold securities at a loss to cover those deposits. Other investors panicked as they saw SVB selling at a loss and losing deposits, and they, too, started yanking their money out of the bank, collapsing it. Banks that have a more diverse client base are less likely to lose everyone all at once.

The FDIC took control of the bank on Friday. On Sunday, regulators also shut down Signature Bank, based in New York, which was a major bank for the cryptocurrency industry. Another crypto-friendly bank, Silvergate, failed last week.

Congress created the FDIC under the Banking Act of 1933 to restore trust in the American banking system after more than a third of U.S. banks failed after the Great Crash of 1929, sparking runs on banks as depositors rushed to take out their money whenever rumors suggested a bank was in trouble, thus causing more failures. The FDIC is an independent agency that insures deposits, examines and supervises banks to make sure they’re healthy, and manages the fallout when they’re not. The FDIC is backed by the full faith and credit of the government, but it is not funded by the government. Member banks pay insurance dues to cover bank failures, and when that isn’t enough money, the FDIC can borrow from the federal government or issue debt.

Over the weekend, the crisis at SVB became a larger argument over the role of government in the protection of the economy. Tech leaders took to social media to insist that the government must cover all the deposits in the failed bank, not just the ones covered under FDIC. They warned that the companies whose deposits were uninsured would fail, taking down the rest of the economy with them.

Others noted that the 🐘 🦕🦖🐍🦍🐉 very men who were arguing the government should  protect all the 🎩 depositors’ money, not just that protected under the FDIC, have been 🐘🦕🦖🐍🦍 vocal in opposing both government regulation of their industry and government relief for student loan debt, suggesting that they hate government actionexcept for 💰🐘😈 themselves. They also pointed out that in 2018, under Trump, Congress weakened government regulations for banks like SVB and that SVB’s president had been a leading advocate for weakening those regulations. Had those regulations been in place, they argue, SVB would have remained solvent.

It appears that Yellen, Powell, and Gruenberg, in consultation with the president (as required), concluded that the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank was a systemic threat to the nation’s whole financial system, or perhaps they concluded that the panic over that collapse—which is a different thing than the collapse itself—was a threat to the nation’s financial system. They apparently decided to backstop the banks to prevent more damage. But they are eager to remind people that they are not using taxpayer money to shore up a poorly managed bank.

Right now, this appears to leave us with two takeaways. The Biden administration had been considering tightening the banking regulations that were loosened under Trump, and it seems likely that the need for the federal government to step in to protect the depositors at SVB and Signature Bank will make it much harder for those opposed to regulation to keep that from happening.
There will likely be increased pressure on the Biden administration to guard against helping out the 🎩 wealthy and 😈 corporations rather than ordinary Americans.

And, perhaps even more important, the weekend of panic and fear over the collapse of just one major bank should make it clear that the  Republicans’ threat to default on the U.S. debt, thus pulling the rug out from under the entire U.S. economy unless they get their way, is simply unthinkable.


https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/march-12-2023

Notes:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312b.htm

https://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/silicon-valley-bank-is-shut-down-by-regulators-fdic-to-protect-insured-deposits.html

https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2023/pr23016.html

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/12/signature-bank-shut-regulators

https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-rolls-out-emergency-measures-to-prevent-banking-crisis-ba4d7f98

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/why-senate-democrats-voted-for-bank-bill-to-ease-dodd-frank-rules.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/business/svb-silicon-valley-bank-explainer.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-10/startup-bank-had-a-startup-bank-run
« Last Edit: March 13, 2023, 03:05:00 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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MONDAY, MAR 13, 2023 - 05:20 PM

Why The Banking System Is Breaking Up

Authored by Michael Hudson

The collapses of Silvergate and Silicon Valley Bank are like icebergs calving off from the Antarctic glacier. The financial analogy to the global warming causing this collapse of supporting shelving is the rising temperature of interest rates, which spiked last Thursday and Friday to close at 4.60 percent for the U.S. Treasury’s two-year bonds. Bank depositors meanwhile were still being paid only 0.2 percent on their deposits. That has led to a steady withdrawal of funds from banks – and a corresponding decline in commercial bank balances with the Federal Reserve.

Most media reports reflect a prayer that the bank runs will be localized, as if there is no context or environmental cause. There is general embarrassment to explain how the breakup of banks that is now gaining momentum is the result of the way that the Obama 🎩 Administration bailed out the 💩🎩 banks in 2008 with fifteen years of Quantitative Easing 🎩 to re-inflate prices for packaged bank mortgages – and with them, housing prices, along with stock and bond prices.

The Fed’s $9 trillion of QE (not counted as part of the budget deficit) fueled an asset-price inflation that made trillions of dollars for holders of financial assets – the One Percent with a generous spillover effect for the remaining members of the top Ten Percent . The cost of home ownership soared by capitalizing mortgages at falling interest rates into more highly debt-leveraged property. The U.S. economy experienced the largest bond-market boom in history as interest rates fell below 1 percent. The economy polarized between the creditor positive-net-worth class and the rest of the economy – whose analogy to environmental pollution and global warming was debt pollution.

But in serving the banks and the financial ownership class, the Fed painted itself into a corner: What would happen if and when interest rates finally rose?

In Killing the Host I wrote about what seemed obvious enough. Rising interest rates cause the prices of bonds already issued to fall – along with real estate and stock prices. That is what has been happening under the Fed’s fight against “inflation,” its euphemism for opposing rising employment and wage levels. Prices are plunging for bonds, and also for the capitalized value of packaged mortgages and other securities in which banks hold their assets on their balance sheet to back their deposits.

The result threatens to push down bank assets below their deposit liabilities, wiping out their net worth – their stockholder equity. This is what was threatened in 2008. It is what occurred in a more extreme way with S&Ls and savings banks in the 1980s, leading to their demise. These “financial intermediaries” did not create credit as commercial banks can do, but lent deposits out in the form of long-term mortgages at fixed interest rates, often for 30 years. But in the wake of the Volcker spike in interest rates that inaugurated the 1980s, the overall level of interest rates remained higher than the interest rates that S&Ls and savings banks were receiving. Depositors began to withdraw their money to get higher returns elsewhere, because S&Ls and savings banks could not pay higher their depositors higher rates out of the revenue coming in from their mortgages fixed at lower rates. So even without fraud Keating-style, the mismatch between short-term liabilities and long-term interest rates ended their business plan.

The S&Ls owed money to depositors short-term, but were locked into long-term assets at falling prices. Of course, S&L mortgages were much longer-term than was the case for commercial banks. But the effect of rising interest rates has the same effect on bank assets that it has on all financial assets. Just as the QE interest-rate decline aimed to bolster the banks, its reversal today must have the opposite effect. And if banks have made bad derivatives trades, they’re in trouble. 🚩

Any bank has a problem of keeping its asset valuations higher than its deposit liabilities. When the Fed raises interest rates sharply enough to crash bond prices, the banking system’s asset structure weakens. That is the corner into which the Fed has painted the economy by QE.

The Fed recognizes this inherent problem, of course. That is why it avoided raising interest rates for so long – until the wage-earning bottom 99 Percent began to benefit by the recovery in employment. When wages began to recover, the Fed could not resist fighting the usual class war against labor. But in doing so, its policy has turned into a war against the banking system as well.

Silvergate was the first to go, but it was a special case. It had sought to ride the cryptocurrency wave by serving as a bank for various currencies. After SBF’s vast fraud was exposed, there was a run on cryptocurrencies. Investor/gamblers jumped ship. The crypto-managers had to pay by drawing down the deposits they had at Silvergate. It went under.

Silvergate’s failure destroyed the great illusion of cryptocurrency deposits. The popular impression was that crypto provided an alternative to commercial banks and “fiat currency.” But what could crypto funds invest in to back their coin purchases, if not bank deposits and government securities or private stocks and bonds? What is crypto, ultimately, if not simply a mutual fund with secrecy of ownership to protect 😈 money launderers?

Silicon Valley Bank also is in many ways a special case, given its specialized lending to IT startups. New Republic bank also has suffered a run, and it too is specialized, lending to wealthy depositors in the San Francisco and northern California area. But a bank run was being talked up last week, and financial markets were shaken up as bond prices declined when Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced that he actually planned to raise interest rates even more than he earlier had targeted, in view of the rising employment making wage earners more uppity in their demands to at least keep up with the inflation caused by the U.S. sanctions against Russian energy and food and the actions by monopolies to raise prices “to anticipate the coming inflation.” Wages have not kept pace with the resulting high inflation rates.

It looks like Silicon Valley Bank will have to liquidate its securities at a loss. Probably it will be taken over by a larger bank, but the entire financial system is being squeezed. Reuters reported on Friday that bank reserves at the Fed were plunging. That hardly is surprising, as banks are paying about 0.2 percent on deposits, while depositors can withdraw their money to buy two-year U.S. Treasury notes yielding 3.8 or almost 4 percent. No wonder well-to-do investors are running from the banks.

The obvious question is why the Fed doesn’t simply bail out banks in SVB’s position. The answer is that the lower prices for financial assets looks like the New Normal. For banks with negative equity, how can solvency be resolved without sharply reducing interest rates to restore the 15-year Zero Interest-Rate Policy (ZIRP)?

There is an even larger elephant in the room: 💣 derivatives 😵. Volatility increased last Thursday and Friday. The turmoil has reached vast magnitudes beyond what characterized the 2008 crash of AIG and other speculators. Today, JP Morgan Chase and other New York banks have tens of trillions of dollar valuations of derivatives – casino bets 💣 on which way interest rates, bond prices, stock prices and other measures will change.

For every winning guess, there is a loser. When trillions of dollars are bet on, some bank trader is bound to wind up with a loss that can easily wipe out the bank’s entire net equity.

There is now a flight to “cash,” to a safe haven – something even better than cash: U.S. Treasury securities. Despite the talk of Republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling, the Treasury can always print the money to pay its bondholders. It looks like the Treasury will become the new depository of choice for those who have the financial resources. Bank deposits will fall. And with them, bank holdings of reserves at the Fed.

So far, the stock market has resisted following the plunge in bond prices. My guess is that we will now see the Great Unwinding of the great Fictitious Capital boom of 2008-2015. So the chickens are coming hope to 🌠 roost – with the “chicken” being, perhaps, the elephantine overhang of derivatives fueled by the post-2008 loosening of financial regulation and risk analysis.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hudson-why-banking-system-breaking
« Last Edit: March 13, 2023, 08:51:51 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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🚨 The Looming Quadrillion Dollar 💣 Derivatives 🌊 Tsunami
« Reply #81 on: March 14, 2023, 02:03:02 pm »
March 13, 2023 by Ellen Brown


🚨 The Looming Quadrillion Dollar 💣 Derivatives 🌊 Tsunami

SNIPPETS:

The FDIC, Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury have now agreed on an interim fix that will the subject of another article. Meanwhile, this column focuses on derivatives and is a followup to my Feb. 23  column 👀 on the “bail in” provisions of the 2010 Dodd Frank Act, which eliminated taxpayer bailouts by requiring insolvent SIFIs to recapitalize themselves with the funds of their creditors. “Creditors” are defined to include depositors, but deposits under $250,000 are protected by FDIC insurance. However, the FDIC fund is sufficient to cover only about 2% 🤦‍♂️ of the $9.6 trillion in U.S. insured deposits 😬. A nationwide crisis triggering bank runs across the country, as happened in the early 1930s, would wipe out the fund. Today, some financial pundits are predicting a crisis of that magnitude in the quadrillion dollar-plus derivatives market, due to rapidly rising interest rates. This column looks at how likely that is and what can be done either to prevent it or dodge out of the way.

Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction

In 2002, mega-investor Warren Buffett wrote that derivatives were “financial weapons of mass destruction.” At that time, their total “notional” value (the value of the underlying assets from which the “derivatives” were “derived”) was estimated at $56 trillion. Investopedia reported in May 2022 that the derivatives bubble had reached an estimated $600 trillion according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and that the total is often estimated at over $1 quadrillion.  No one knows for sure, because most of the trades are done privately

As of the third quarter of 2022, according to the “Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities” of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the federal bank regulator),  a total of 1,211 insured U.S. national and state commercial banks and savings associations held derivatives, but 88.6% of these were concentrated in only four large banks: J.P. Morgan Chase ($54.3 trillion), Goldman Sachs ($51 trillion), Citibank ($46 trillion), Bank of America ($21.6 trillion), followed by Wells Fargo ($12.2 trillion). A full list is here. Unlike in 2008-09, when the big derivative concerns were mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps, today the largest and riskiest category is interest rate products.

The original purpose of derivatives was to help farmers and other producers manage the risks of dramatic changes in the markets for raw materials. But in recent times they have exploded into powerful vehicles for leveraged speculation (borrowing to gamble). In their basic form, derivatives are just bets – a giant casino in which players hedge against a variety of changes in market conditions (interest rates, exchange rates, defaults, etc.). They are sold as insurance against risk, which is passed off to the counterparty to the bet. But the risk is still there, and if the counterparty can’t pay, both parties lose. In “systemically important” situations, the government winds up footing the bill.

Like at a race track, players can bet although they have no interest in the underlying asset (the horse). This has allowed derivative bets to grow to many times global GDP and has added another element of risk: if you don’t own the barn on which you are betting, the temptation is there to 😈 🔥 burn down the barn to get the insurance. The financial entities taking these bets typically hedge by betting both ways, and they are highly interconnected. If counterparties don’t get paid, they can’t pay their own counterparties, and the whole system can go down very quickly, a systemic risk called “the domino effect.” ... ...

Another 💣 time bomb in the news is Credit Suisse, a giant Swiss derivatives bank that was hit with an $88 billion run on its deposits by large institutional investors late in 2022. The bank was bailed out by the Swiss National Bank through swap lines with the U.S. Federal Reserve at 3.33% interest. ... ...

The 🚩 dilemma of our current banking system is that lenders won’t advance the short-term liquidity needed to fund repo loans without an ironclad guarantee; but the guarantee that makes the lender’s money safe makes the system itself very risky. When a debtor appears to be on shaky ground, there will be a predictable stampede by favored creditors to grab the collateral, in a rush for the exits that can propel an otherwise-viable debtor into bankruptcy; and that is what happened to Lehman Brothers. ... ...

Today the Fed appears to be regaining its independence by intentionally killing the Fed Put, with its push to raise interest rates. (See my earlier article here.) It is still backstopping the offshore dollar market with “swap lines,” arrangements between central banks of two countries to keep currency available for member banks,  but the latest swap line rate for the European Central Bank is a pricey 4.83%. No more “free lunch” for the banks.

Alternative Solutions

Full article:
https://ellenbrown.com/2023/03/13/the-looming-quadrillion-dollar-derivatives-tsunami/

Reality Based Quote of the day: "Bear Stearns collapsed on 💣 March 14th, 2008. It wasn’t until 6 months later that the 💥 Global Financial Crisis started with the 🌠 collapse of Lehman on September 15th, 2008." -- Peter Schiff TUESDAY, March 14, 2023 - 02:05 PM
« Last Edit: March 14, 2023, 03:41:35 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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March 13, 2023

Economic Update: Social 🎩 Security🔨 👀, Ohio ☠️ Derailment, Puerto Rican 😞 Poverty - US Capitalism 😈 Provokes


20,229 views  Premiered Mar 13, 2023  Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff 🗽 
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[S13 E11] Social Security, Ohio Derailment, Puerto Rican Poverty : US Capitalism Provokes

In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff focuses on the struggle over Social Security- real versus false alternatives- and the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment tragedy. In the second half of the show, Wolff interviews Alexis Colón about the colonial status of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans fighting against it.

Timestamps:
00:00 - 01:01 - Intro
01:02 - 10:06 - Social Security
10:07 - 14:33 - Ohio Train Derailment
14:34 - 15:45 - Announcements
14:46 - 29:50 - Interview with Alexis Colón

Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a @democracyatwrk production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads. Please consider supporting our work. Join our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork and help us spread Prof. Wolff's message to a larger audience. Every donation counts!

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Selected (of many reality based) Comments:

treefrog3349 March 13, 2023
The plight of the average American worker could be best describe as one of "erosion": slow and steady, barely discernible degradation of their economic viability over a long period of time. Using a steel bridge as an example, the superficial patina that accumulating rust exhibits obscures the actual structural integrity of the bridge. It takes a long time, but if that erosion persists, the bridge will eventually collapse under its own weight. Such is the plight of a large swath of our working class, the very foundation of our economy. An immense upward transfer of wealth over the last 40 years coupled with the neglect for the well-being of millions, is undermining the structural integrity of democracy itself. Worse yet, this wasn't a matter of neglect and mismanagement. It was intentional, providing a ready pool of desperate, manipulatable and exploited "citizens".

Sober Thinking March 16, 2023
Excellent video! I would only add that Social Security is actually CUT every single year since 1983. How so?
📢 The SS pension income threshhold for taxing SS benefits has NOT been adjusted for inflation since then!

Here's a graphic that proves that:

Retired Senior Citizens that depend onSocial Security to survive are annually LOSING some buying power, despite their SS pension being annually adjusted up by the CPI COLA calculations of the BLS. That is effectively a PENSION CUT EVERY SINGLE YEAR BECAUSE of INFLATION.

ANY 😈 politician, REGARDLESS of Party affiliation, that says Social Security is "not being cut and will be defended" is a LIAR! 😡
« Last Edit: March 16, 2023, 04:29:25 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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The assemblies of violent men have corrupted the USA.
« Reply #83 on: April 07, 2023, 03:14:05 pm »
O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; and have not set thee before them. Psalm 86:14
« Last Edit: April 08, 2023, 02:03:16 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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"It 🤖 begins" 🤦‍♂️
« Reply #84 on: April 18, 2023, 01:47:14 pm »
😬

TECHSPOT

By Rob Thubron April 14, 2023 at 6:55 AM

Company says it will replace creative workers with ChatGPT-like generative 🤖 AI 👀

It begins

SNIPPETS:

What just happened? Fears that generative AIs could replace human jobs have become a reality 😬 at one of China's largest media and public relations companies. Bluefocus Intelligent Communications Group Co. is planning on replacing its external copywriters and graphic designers with generative AI models, and more of the country's industry giants could follow suit.

Bloomberg News reports that an internal staff memo seen by the publication revealed the plans to replace external staff with generative AI. "To 💵🎩😈 embrace the new wave of AI-generated content, starting today we've decided to halt all spending on third-party copywriters and designers," reads the internal memo. ... ...

Any system that can automate a human worker's job is going to cause concerns, as has been the case for decades, but few technologies have caused as much worry as generative AI. According to research by bank Goldman Sachs, these systems could replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe, the equivalent of 300 million jobs, and cause "significant disruption" across big economies.

Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani, the authors of the Goldman Sachs paper, say nearly two-thirds of jobs in the US and Europe are exposed to some degree of AI automation. Globally, 18% of work could be automated by AI, with developed countries impacted more than emerging markets. About 7% of workers in jobs where generative AI could perform at least half their daily tasks are vulnerable to replacement.

Full article:
https://www.techspot.com/news/98314-company-replace-creative-workers-chatgpt-like-generative-ai.html

Selected (of several) Reality Based COMMENTS:

kira setsu Apr 14, 2023, 12:38 PM
Uncle Al said
Quote
"At some point I think there will be a rebellion against all of those that choose to go this route, especially by professionals. Once these companies start feeling it in the pocketbook they will quickly reverse their decisions. No matter the benefits of AI, if it puts educated people out of work and their are no jobs to be found, there will be no money to be spent and the downfall begins ......"
.
"At some point"
that's the massive issue right there, these companies aren't dumb and they notice that so far at least..."we the people" have done nothing to go against them or really fight back, the fact a company just comes out and says flat out "were gonna replace with you" is all you need to know, they have no fear of retribution because it hasn't happened to any of the other wild and terrible ideas they crank out..."at some point" will be chiseled into humanity's tombstone, probably by a chiselbot turbo.

Have you seen the reaction of many companies regarding the protests and boycotts for these pushing their woke agendas with force and at stupid levels?
what they have done is push harder
but yes, this is on a larger scale, because it can attack people's sources of income/livelihood.

Neatfeatguy Apr 14, 2023, 2:18 PM
Quick! Let's save money by outsourcing to what isn't really AI!

This AI crap can't think for itself, it only regurgitates what it finds online. Why do stupid people seem to think this is AI? Oh yeah, that's right....because stupid media and company big wigs know most humans out there are dumb and will believe what they tell them, especially if they keep repeating the same thing over and over again.

Dimitrios Apr 14, 2023, 4:23 PM
Job interview

What are your qualifications?

" I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton."

mbk34 Apr 15, 2023, 2:27 AM
AI creeps up on you. I thought I was ahead of the game having put (fairly simple) AI into arcade games and produced genetic learning programs for chess engines. Then I'm having breakfast with my son who expresses little interest in IT, let alone AI, and he mentions he uses ChatGPT all the time to produce reports for the energy markets.

cristianm Apr 15, 2023, 5:02 AM
Creative work can't be replaced by generative programs for now. But let's be serious, there are tons of articles that do not require creativity because they are rehashes of older things, sensationally repacked or not. There are summaries of games and so on that are written with very few formulations. So GPTs can write the junk with little to no loss to humanity. But writing a novel is more than generating some text that seems to flow.

Gastec Apr 16, 2023, 5:23 PM
"Creative workers", an euphemism for all workers. The propaganda I've been hearing for decades from all political parties, was that they want to CREATE more jobs, not to destroy jobs, at least in Europe. Many European and from over the pond corporations have received lots of help, legal facilities and look-the-other-way's from the State and from the Law, the kind a simple individual who wants to open a small bussiness doesn't get, precisely because they came with the promise of creating lots of jobs after opening their factories, supermarkets, office buildings and whatnot.
Now, after getting all that help to fill their pockets with lots of money, surprise mechanics Pikachu! They have the nerve to tell us that they no longer need human workers? And we have to what, just shut up, "just buy it" because "it just works"?

Thanthan Apr 16, 2023, 8:49 PM
For a Technology that will hallucinate two non existent norms for every correct one it lists in a given field people sure are expecting a lot from this tech.
I asked it to put some lists of relevant European norms for work and seriously I had to abandon the **** it GPT gave me. Numbers all wrong, non existent standards, just BS for what is an incredibly simple question.

It’s way, way too prone to being absolutely stupid in all the wrong places to be capable of replacing a human. A human I at least know which parts it finds hard when I’m doing quality control… the AI is stupid in the most absurd of places.

Don’t get me started on the art ones… ask them to give you an action scene or something with lots of people, I dare you.

We are not there yet. It’s semi interesting research, and fun to use at home. Trust it for work? Yea bugger off.

Gastec Apr 17, 2023, 7:55 AM
yRaz said
Quote
Keeping economic inneffiencies for the sake of keeping jobs is silly. "computer" use to be a job where people would do math by hand. I don't think modern farmers are arguing with hydraulics. The fact of the matter is that if your job can be easily replaced and automated then it should be. No one is entitled to a job.

"No one is entitled to a job". You must be an idealist, because the world is full of nepotism and lazy people "entitled" to their jobs. For example in the socialist, progressive and inclusive EU country (that starts with S) where I live and work, mediocrity is awarded and stupidity is tolerated and the chatbots won't take up many jobs any time soon, in the big corporations or factories with thousands of employees, because if they do, those jobless masses will burn down the cities, along with the politicians who let it happen. If there must be a change it has to happen slowly, not overnight because some greedy, old Corporate Commanders want a few more billions before they go meet their horned god.

Avro Arrow Apr 17, 2023, 8:25 AM
Gastec said
Quote
"No one is entitled to a job". You must be an idealist, because the world is full of nepotism and lazy people "entitled" to their jobs. For example in the socialist, progressive and inclusive EU country (that starts with S) where I live and work, mediocrity is awarded and stupidity is tolerated and the chatbots won't take up many jobs any time soon, in the big corporations or factories with thousands of employees, because if they do, those jobless masses will burn down the cities, along with the politicians who let it happen. If there must be a change it has to happen slowly, not overnight because some greedy, old Corporate Commanders want a few more billions before they go meet their horned god.

I agree that nobody is "entitled" to a job but I do believe that private corporations should be heavily-regulated because, as we've seen, they're extremely prone to making decisions that damage the economy, the people and the planet.

I don't know what country you mean so I'll make a guess... Sweden?

EDIT: Your speckled hen reference actually makes me think more like Slovakia or Slovenia.

Shear Apr 17, 2023, 9:22 AM
yRaz said
Quote
Keeping economic inneffiencies for the sake of keeping jobs is silly. "computer" use to be a job where people would do math by hand. I don't think modern farmers are arguing with hydraulics. The fact of the matter is that if your job can be easily replaced and automated then it should be. No one is entitled to a job.

It's one thing to take away tedious jobs from people like calculating and manual labor by replacing it with mechanized stuff. It's entirely different when you start taking away jobs that are meaningful to people like programming, writing, and art of any kind. If people aren't working because they can't get a job due to AI doing everything better faster and forever without any complaints humanity is done. People NEED jobs to live. They may not be entitled to one but they absolutely need one and it will be impossible to compete with AIs eventually.

You can say well we will make new jobs... right those will also get automated immediately.

yRaz Apr 17, 2023, 9:48 AM
Shear said
Quote
It's one thing to take away tedious jobs from people like calculating and manual labor by replacing it with mechanized stuff. It's entirely different when you start taking away jobs that are meaningful to people like programming, writing, and art of any kind. If people aren't working because they can't get a job due to AI doing everything better faster and forever without any complaints humanity is done. People NEED jobs to live. They may not be entitled to one but they absolutely need one and it will be impossible to compete with AIs eventually.

You can say well we will make new jobs... right those will also get automated immediately.

If AI can do everything better than maybe we have to reevaluate how our economy works

yRaz Apr 17, 2023, 10:07 AM
Avro Arrow said
Quote
I agree that nobody is "entitled" to a job but I do believe that private corporations should be heavily-regulated because, as we've seen, they're extremely prone to making decisions that damage the economy, the people and the planet.

I don't know what country you mean so I'll make a guess... Sweden?

EDIT: Your speckled hen reference actually makes me think more like Slovakia or Slovenia.

The economy has been broken for the entirety of human kind. The only time it remotely worked properly was between 1940 and 1970 and then it completely failed in 2008. I'm not calling for outright socialism but whatever this dumpster fire that we call capitalism is not working. For human history we have relied on production based economies. If AI and automation can replace the human work force WE WILL have to think of how the economy works differently. I know I'm tired of living in this clown world . I got a significant raise this year but when adjusted for the cost of living I still make less than I did pre-covid.

Shear Apr 17, 2023, 10:49 AM
yRaz said
Quote
If AI can do everything better than maybe we have to reevaluate how our economy works
100% this should happen. In theory with AI every person on Earth could live an amazing life. Just enjoy every second of it on this planet. Have meaningful experiences whatever they may be to each person. But people are greedy, especially the elites who are in charge of making these systems (board members, the people who are all about that profits the people who are funding all this) and I just don't see how this isn't going to be exploited to the max instead.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2023, 02:32:15 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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Who benefits from poverty? Matthew Desmond says many of us do.
« Reply #85 on: April 27, 2023, 04:46:55 pm »

Apr 26 2023 By David Goodman

Vermont Conversation: Who benefits from poverty? Matthew Desmond says many of us do.

Why does the U.S. — the richest country in the world — have the most poverty of any advanced democracy? Why are homeless encampments popping up from Seattle to Burlington?

The answer is that, 😈 knowingly or 🐵 unknowingly, many of us benefit from keeping poor people poor.

That is the argument made by Matthew Desmond in his bestselling new book, “Poverty, by America.” Desmond won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 book, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City," which was named by Book Riot as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the last century. He is a professor of sociology at Princeton University, a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” fellowship, and was named by Politico in 2016 as one of “fifty people across the country who are most influencing the national political debate.”

He argues that regulations ranging from zoning to environmental laws are being used to block affordable housing, a key factor that is driving the homeless crisis. He says that this problem is often especially acute in communities known for their otherwise progressive politics. Low wages are kept low for the benefit of the more 😈🎩 affluent.

“In most residential land in America, it's illegal to build anything except a single detached family home 😟,” Desmond told The Vermont Conversation. “That little regulation buried inside of our zoning codes really means that the only place poor families can live are neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage, concentrated poverty, and that creates a level of disadvantage of a whole other order. I think that we need to think about our role and our complicity in maintaining those walls around our communities.”

Desmond intends his work to be “a call to action. It means that we need to get our tails down to that zoning board meeting on a Thursday night at eight o'clock and stand up and say, Look, I refuse to be a segregationist. I refuse to deny other kids opportunities my kids receive living here. Let's build [affordable housing].”
Matthew Desmond’s work is grounded in his own experience growing up in poverty. He started studying housing, poverty, and eviction in 2008, when he lived among poor tenants and their landlords in Milwaukee. He now directs the Eviction Lab at Princeton, and is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, where “Poverty, By America” was recently excerpted.

Desmond wants to inspire a new abolitionist movement.Poverty abolitionists view poverty not as a minor social issue or an inevitability, but as an abomination,” he said. “It shares with other abolitionist movements -- the movement to abolish slavery [and] prisons, for example -- the recognition, the conviction, that if my gain comes at someone else's loss, that's corrupting in a way."

"A poverty abolitionist divests from exploitation even if it benefits us. We try to shop and invest in solidarity with poor workers," he said. "We want a government that has a balanced and sensible welfare state, a government that does much more to fight poverty than to alleviate the tax burdens of the affluent. And we are for integrated communities and open, inclusive neighborhoods.”

Poverty abolitionism “is a political mission,” said Desmond, “but it's also a personal stance.” 
https://vtdigger.org/2023/04/26/vermont-conversation-who-benefits-from-poverty-matthew-desmond-says-many-of-us-do/
« Last Edit: April 27, 2023, 04:57:43 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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Economics and Beyond

Thursday Mar 16, 2023 🔊 PODCAST

Historians Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University) and Erik Conway (Caltech) talk to Rob about their just-released book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.

« Last Edit: May 17, 2023, 06:04:19 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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💣 ... longest streak of 🌠 declines since 'Lehman'
« Reply #87 on: May 18, 2023, 12:35:14 pm »
THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2023


US Leading Economic Indicators 🌠 Tumble For 13th Straight Month, "Weaknesses Were Widespread"

SNIPPET:

The Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) continued its decline in April, dropping 0.6% MoM (in line with the 0.6% decline expected).

The biggest positive contributor to the leading index was stock prices at 0.16

The biggest negative contributor was average consumer expectations at -0.26

This is the 13th straight monthly decline in the LEI (and 14th month of 16) -  the longest streak of declines since 'Lehman' (22 straight months of declines from June 2007 to April 2008)

Full article with 💣 charts:
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/us-leading-economic-indicators-tumble-13th-straight-month-weaknesses-were
« Last Edit: May 18, 2023, 12:37:24 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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May 25, 2023 • by Wolf Richter • 55 Comments

Inflation 👀 a 😕 Stickier Problem than 🙊🙉🙈 Markets Realize

Wolf Richter on inflation, consumers, the labor market, and when will these drunken sailors finally stop throwing money around, with Adam Taggart on Wealthion:

May 25, 2023 at 9:23 am perpetual perp
There’s no ‘irony’ in our current system. All that is going on is best described as ‘unethical.’ We have an ethics problem. The gyrations the Fed goes through with interest rate manipulation has what is called an ‘allocative effect’ said effect allocates (as in transfers) wealth from labor and the middle class up to the super-rich class. Both in the ‘boom’ and in the ensuing ‘bust’ of our chronic ‘boom and bust’ episodes. The cure for this nonsense is to re-install progressive tax rates, to apply the anti-trust laws. And to impose some ethics in the markets, which are essentially casinos today, having very little to do with accurate price resolution.

May 25, 2023 at 1:18 pm AGelbert > perpetual perp
Agreed. At the root of, not just the economy’s problems, but most of the socially destructive actions presently causing the degradation of our biosphere and the reduction of average human life span, is TPTB’s love affair with Social Darwinism. Social Darwinists believe that ethics based principles are ‘limitations pretending to be virtues’. To them, ethics are ‘feel good illusions’ that humans invented to pretend our species has empathy. To Social Darwinists, empathy is irrefutable evidence of inexcusable weakness. To them, all who are guided by ethics are deluded fools that should be eliminated from the human ‘apex predator’ gene pool for the “good” of our species.

Until TPTB recognize that their love affair with profit over people and planet, otherwise known as “corporate fiduciary responsibility”, is ruinously socially destructive, things will get worse.


Learn more:
Economics and Beyond
Rob Johnson is not your average economist, and this is not your average economics podcast. Every week, Rob talks about economic and social issues with a guest who probably wasn’t on your Econ 101 reading list, from musicians to activists to rebel economists. A podcast of The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).

Thursday Mar 16, 2023 🔊 PODCAST

Historians Naomi Oreskes (Harvard University) and Erik Conway (Caltech) talk to Rob about their just-released book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market.

« Last Edit: May 25, 2023, 03:18:23 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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So now we love 😈 tax cheats? 😠
« Reply #89 on: June 04, 2023, 04:40:11 pm »

So now we love 😈 tax cheats? 😠

Jun 4 2023, 7:10 AM by 🗽 Bob Stannard

SNIPPET:

You’re probably saying, “This doesn’t make any sense,” and you’d be right. At the local level, we insist on going after those who owe even the slightest amount of money to the town. At the national level, one 🐘 political party has decided that it’s perfectly fine for some, the 🎩 very wealthy, not to pay their fair share of taxes and have convinced many Americans that any additional IRS funding will result in workers being assaulted by auditors. That, of course, is not true. The president wants the IRS to be more receptive, which is a good thing.
Full article: 
https://vtdigger.org/2023/06/04/bob-stannard-so-now-we-love-tax-cheats/

« Last Edit: June 04, 2023, 04:45:42 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12