Posted on 09/12/2011 3:13:29 AM PDT by OneLoyalAmerican
Seriously.
There is persistent chatter about a Greek default over the weekend, which Greece denied, but the denier refused to be named. If it's not true, then put your damned name on the statement or be considered what you are - liars. Greece failed to place their short-term bill rollover. That's a declaration by the market that even for short-term paper the market has utterly lost confidence in Greece and the Euro.
Germany's DAX market relative to the United States just hit a five year low today.
To add to the "liar liar pants on fire" calls Germany is now reported to be working a plan to recapitalize their banks if Greece defaults. This in turn means three things:
•A Greek default is considered credible by Germany and they are taking official actions related to that possibility. So much for the denials.
•German banks (and presumably French banks and all the other big banks too) are insolvent as they are carrying these bonds at well above their actual value in the marketplace. If the bonds were carried at the claimed "loss" values, which is quoted as 50%, then there would be no need to recapitalize them would there? This is an official statement of proof that the banks are lying about asset values and are in fact insolvent.
•Remember that we were just told days ago that these banks were fine and needed no capital and in fact calls for more capital by the IMF were officially refused. The same claim has been made about our banks. You were just told officially by Germany that their claim of adequate capital just days ago was a lie as they are now planning to recapitalize the banks. Do you believe our banks are not similarly exposed and also insolvent? YOU'RE BETTING YOUR FUTURE ON THE BELIEF THAT THEY ARE, SO THIS QUESTION IS QUITE GERMANE AND TIMELY: ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT BEING LIED TO EXACTLY AS WE WERE ABOUT GERMAN BANKS?
Coincident with this hitting the wires there was a massive flow of money into the Japanese Yen - and out of the Euro. A monstrous safety trade - people fleeing the European common currency for what they perceive as a "safe haven." At the same time our markets are down 300 DOW points, the S&P is down 2.5% on the day and more than forty points off the early-morning top -- and there's no sign that things are stabilizing at all.
I said the Euro was going to par, and that might be too conservative. With that our stock market will get cut in half -- or more -- from here and once again the banks, insurance companies and everyone else will start crying poor mouth.
The problem is that this time there's no money to bail them out with in the US and as a result if this outcome manifests they will fail. The embedded losses in those institutions on mortgages alone total trillions, which is several times the available debt ceiling and so far beyond the FDIC's reserves that there is no way to cover you, the average person.
Nobody - and I do mean nobody - in our political establishment from either party gives a damn about the lies and outright fraud in our financial system. Neither political party, including some very specific representatives that have railed about various problems in capital markets, the IMF and similar over the last couple of years will even open their damn mouths, say much less demand structural changes and an end to the frauds.
I have been making attempts to break through that "glass ceiling" now for four years with several representative and senatorial offices. How many speeches have you seen on this topic, or even questions directed at like people such as Bernanke under oath?
I'll answer that for you: ZERO.
The opportunity to fix these problems has been there since 2007 and I have steadfastly put forward plans that will work to resolve these issues, albeit at the cost of there being no more leverage-driven asset-stripping games. I've written over four thousand Tickers since 2007 and a couple of White Papers and distributed them to Congressional offices by postal mail and fax. In addition there are literal hundreds of staffers that access The Ticker on a regular basis along with every three-letter government agency, including the law-enforcement ones.
There can be no claim that "nobody saw this coming" because I assure you that not only did plenty of people see it coming I have repeatedly warned of the "end game" and consequences - loudly.
Nobody from either party will address this or even discuss this and the reason should be obvious - the banks own the politicians. That's fine - they can both hang on the rope of their own construction through their willful and intentional acts of malfeasance and fraud. Absolutely none of this was a mistake.
I believe the alarm has now rung. The market calls all bluffs and that's exactly what it's doing right here, right now, today. The lies have been overwhelmed by the functional facts - that you cannot make payroll or pay the light bill with imaginary money - you need real money, and there isn't any. The time has run out on the fraud pulled in 2009 by Kanjorski with his "mark to fantasy" crap game.
We are doing the same thing right here in the United States with Obama's demands for "more stimulus" with no way to pay for it, games being run by banks suppressing price discovery and hiding losses on mortgages engendered by nine trillion in residential property value loss, the asset-stripping that was performed on the citizens of Jefferson County Alabama and more. Not one damn thing has been done to fix the underlying problems and nobody has gone to jail for these acts.
You cannot solve a debt crisis with more debt any more than you can fix a drunk with a case of whiskey. Yet that is exactly what we've tried to do both in the United States and internationally. The end point of that process here is exactly the same as it is there. You're getting a preview America, and if you think that a 20% sell-off in the stock market is what we get when it happens here, you're wrong. Try a 90% loss on for size followed by the utter failure of every pension fund and insurance company that has sold annuities - including yours.
Our economic system and quite-possibly our government is finished if we allow this to occur.
The claims that "it will all be ok if we just help these people bridge the gap" is now being exposed as an outright and intentional fraud. That fraud has been perpetrated against you, the American taxpayer, by your government and central bank.
Three years into this since the 2008 collapse and not a damn thing has been addressed or fixed. You can see that proof in the employment statistics which, incidentally, are about to get much worse.
YOU have been seduced by the siren song of "Guns, Gays and God" (or "Obama's gonna pay my mortgage!" if you prefer) instead of the truth - a bunch of *******s stole your future sequentially over more than 30 years by levering up on your back, knowing full well they couldn't cover their debts. These intentional acts, which are acts of fraud -- all of them -- occurred in Washington DC and on Wall Street, and they were not limited to the United States. This is a worldwide phenomena.
We're now in the endgame. Greece, if you recall, showed up in early 2010 as a problem. Did our government take this warning and act on it, stop the frauds, prosecute the wrongdoers, close the insolvent banks, and force the recognition of the nine trillion in lost value in residential housing? Did we see bankruptcy occur for those who are in fact bankrupt?
NO.
EVERY ONE OF THE POLITICIANS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE - ALL OF THEM WITHOUT EXCEPTION - HAVE LIED, CHEATED AND STOLE FROM YOU TO PROTECT A GANG THAT HAS REPEATEDLY ABUSED LEVERAGE TO ROB YOU BLIND. NOW THE PONZI SCHEME IS COLLAPSING AS WE ARE OUT OF SUCKERS - GLOBALLY - WITH WHICH TO PERPETUATE IT.
While I write this CNBC runs claims of "we're going to show you how to protect yourself in this market." Oh really? Why didn't you just tell people to get the hell out in 2007 as I advised and sit back with a bunch of popcorn? You'd still have all your damn money and none of the heartburn. NOW, after the market is down nearly 20% off the recent highs, you want to talk about "protection"? NOW?
You have one final opportunity to choose America: Watch Dancing With the Stars or demand and enforce your demand that this crap stop right now.
Just be aware - if you choose "Dancing With The Stars" that it won't be long before you have no job, no money and perhaps no electricity with which to power your TV and no "free stuff" coming from a bankrupt government either. Yes, it can happen here, and if you think not you're dumber than a box-of-rocks and deserve exactly what is coming.
Choose now, choose here and choose wisely.
Gold bug ping
“Our economic system and quite-possibly our government is finished if we allow this to occur.”
Ok, premise accepted. We’re screwed. So...what to do?
I get the point. I’ve gotten the point. I’m getting tired of people telling me the point. Let’s move on to doing something about it, eh?
Can’t speak for the author, but my impression is that what we can do is, endure, as best we can. The mathematics aren’t something we can do much about at this point. Prepare. Try to be wise, and frugal. Don’t go into debt, whatever you do end up doing. And pray. For the country, the world, your friends, both here and in the real world, and your family.
An addendum, courtesy of John Galt:
http://johngaltfla.com/wordpress/2011/09/12/crash-alert-could-be-my-friends-well-see/
I have found this website to be a very useful source of information on the economy, gold, and silver.
http://goldismoney.info/forums/
Got it. You’ve posted that same text 50 times, I think that is sufficient.
Denninger is getting to be a bit over-the-top.
I think he believed he’d be a political leader or at least that world leaders would be calling him for consultation at this point in his blogger’s career.
He is taking himself way too seriously these days and finds fault in everyone but himself.
He is not the first and certainly will not be the last to make his economic predictions from the Austrian school of economics. Our prosperity and our entire financial system is based upon debt, which must collapse eventually. Mel Tappan was making this claim at the end of the 70’s. The viewpoint is correct, in my humble opinion, and the system must collapse eventually. “When” is anyone’s guess. Who could have believed they could keep printing/borrowing-and-spending for so long. It could be that they could continue this charade until they are talking about tens-of-trillions in stimulus and quadrillions of national debt. Who knows.
Regardless if he is correct regarding his timing, check the tag line that I’ve had for a long time now.
If you need some basic details, freepmail me or google any of the older survivalist forums.
If all this really happens...the politicians and bankers had better hope for for a rope shortage....
Yes, according to common sense and every logical analysis of human behavior, the system must eventually collapse. Here’s why it hasn’t yet ...
As long as the public believes the greenback has value, it actually does. Gold is valuable because people believe in it. At one time, spices had value as a currency.
The general public doesn’t understand what economists “understand” about why and how gold holds its value. If things got bad enough, flour would be more valuable than gold because one cannot eat gold and one can buy flour with gold only if the people who have the flour believe gold has value.
The public decides what has value and what doesn’t.
It does not look good. The Euro traded as low as 135 to the dollar this morning.
Not that many days ago the Euro was at 145 to the dollar.
You are right about Denninger.
Two things that I find particularly annoying. First, he goes out of his way to fault the Tea Party and Republicans. He fails to recognize that the Democrats, and a subset of the Republican party, are exclusively to blame for our current predicament. It wouldn’t fit into his “I am the only smart person in the universe” theme.
The second is that he fails to understand how moral decay forms the basis for our inability to solve these problems.
Having said that, however, he is quite right that we have gone off the cliff. But, as you say, there are many others out there who realize this.
Fellow gold enthusiasts: I recently saw an article posted on FR claiming that the $600 IRS reporting requirement (in obamacare) for vendor sales was going to be in effect on 1/1/12. I thought it had been repealed. Which is it?
“Ok, premise accepted. We’re screwed. So...what to do?”
That’s not his point. For example, I go after Rick Perry because I HATE HIM (having lived under him for a decade), not because I love Sarah or Michelle or Herman, as I don’t (I do love DeMint...but he’s not running).
...anyway, if I name someone else in my anti-Perry rants, then I’m just considered a Palin-fanatic (for example) and not credible on Perry. Likewise this guy is saying we’re screwed and he figures that people that understand what he’s saying (as in myself) already know what’s necessary (i.e., gold, safe currencies, prepping, etc...) as the outcome is always the same. But he wants to keep the focus of his article on why we’re crashing...as that seems to be the hardest point to get across. But the results are always the same (i.e., Argentina, Russia, etc.) and the correct ways to prepare for it is always the same...and well documented (including on this site).
Unless of course, it was never the intent to 'solve' the crisis in the first place. Nothing else makes sense.
Imagine that you've had a near-fatal heart attack. You hit the emergency room and the first thing the doctor does is to open the veins on your wrists. That's the essence of what's being done to our economy. "To what end?" you might say. The answer is that our erstwhile masters would rather rule in hell than to leave us alone to live our lives.
No clue, but that’s the first time I’ve seen that link (my browser got rejected, I’ll have to watch it at home)
It's like a game of musical chairs. Except this time, when the music stops, everyone suddenly realizes that all the chairs have been stolen. After that...
“Denninger is getting to be a bit over-the-top.”
He sees a person making $50,000 a year (with no hope of increasing), living in a $300,000 house, with another $150,000 short term loan due in the next year or two - and the guy has also promised his parents $2,000,000 over the course of their retirement, for expenses, including all medical expenses...and he see’s this country becoming Third World because of it.
He’s simply done the math. Anyone in his area can do the math...it MUST end this way. He tries to tell the right people, but they ignore him - and in a way they have to, because the populace won’t believe how bad things are anyway.
So he’s a bit upset...so would I be (and I am).
Well, yes. And, for a long time too.
On the other hand, how does the number of those who have said such things compare with the number of those who (1) hear, and having heard (2) concur?
This is a lot of the reason why folks like Denniger become so strident. Can you imagine how Enoch sounded by the end of his near-millennium-long preaching career on the coming Flood? LOL
No one's known how long it'll take for these fiat currency schemes to implode. It sure looks like it'll be sooner rather than later. Perhaps Greece gives us a bit of sense for how to interpret the end-game for the rest of the Western fiat currency regimes. If so, then we don't have much time left -- a few years at the outside.
Meanwhile, "what to do?" has also been clear from the beginning:
1. Protect whatever wealth you do have by putting it mostly into some commodity or tangible resource, and,
2. Lay aside some form of provisions to tide you over the most extreme economic reprocussions of an economic crash.
My own sense is that the latter provision does not need to be for more than a few weeks at the outside. A totalitarian regime will quickly fill any vacuum an economic collapse creates (history shows this emphatically!), so it won't be long before the new strongmen (or, horrors, strongwomen!) will have the trains running on time again.
I’m aware of prepping etc., having been raised that way. (Dad’s valid response to the then-looming Y2K disaster: “I’ll throw another log on the fire and go back to my book.”)
I was just whining that the whole Chicken Little thing is getting kinda tiresome. Yes, Little, the sky is falling - can we move on to the next obvious topic already?
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