brianoh

13 Comments

    • ON: Mon Sep 8th 19:21 PM
      Commented on:
      The Great Dollar Pump of 2008: A Doomed Central Bank Intervention
      Trouble is, the Fed controls the fawcet, and the Fed is run by bankers and Keynesian-economists. They rely on asset-inflation to boost the economy, and ignore the fundamental signs of the performance of the economy. If any other country was performing like the US, it's currency would be devastated. Gold was once the valve controlling the M3, and now there is no valve. It is obvious that the actions of the Fed have had major adverse consequences for the US economy. Trouble is, noone can stop them other than themselves. Forget congress, forget the Treasury, they are only interested in short-term results. Where will it all end? The housing bubble and bust is a sign that asset-inflation cannot continue. The Fed needs it to continue to support other overpriced assets such as stocks - trouble is, real US incomes have not risen in 30 years. If traditional CPI calculations were used, the story would be much worse.
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    • ON: Mon Sep 8th 18:48 PM
      Commented on:
      Are We Being Scammed?
      The asset inflation is obviously the result of the printing of massive liquidity at give-away rates (lower than inflation). The big question is when and how it will all end. It may not end. After all, all of that "wealth" created up to 2001 has to go somewhere. The fact that US stocks have had a negative return since 2001 obviously indicates that they were massively overpriced. Trouble is the Fed controls the fawcet and doesn't know a drought from a flood. The Fed-Bank partnership is little different to the concept of feudalism - the consumers being the serfs.
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    • ON: Mon Sep 8th 04:32 AM
      Commented on:
      Google's Checkmate Was Three Moves Ago
      The alternatives IMO are M$ and desktop or Goog and Chrome. M$ had their chance, now it is Googs turn. The demise of the desktop has just started. I think it is easy to see what is down the road a bit that will start to make Windows redundant. Power corrupts - true, we have seen it. Let's see if Goog can stick to their mantra. There will always be other big players with vested interests to protect offering alternatives. It is a pleasant change to download something of substance that doesn't take gigabytes. M$ at present appears like a rudderless ship - the M$-Yhoo deal was an absolute fiasco.
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    • ON: Sun Aug 31st 18:45 PM
      Commented on:
      Bracing for Another Round of Credit Related Woes
      One major point is that the Fed Rate of 2% improves bank's profitability, or at least reduces their losses. The spread between what they pay and what they receive on mortgages is very high. This means that those with cash are paying for their losses on bad loans. As for stocks, it is a question of what are reasonable PE ratios. Based on historical rates stocks are at least 30% overpriced and the Fed and Treasury are fighting like mad to keep them there - hence the housing bubble caused by Greenspan. The whole FIAT money system is at risk as a result of printing too much money and inflating asset prices.
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    • ON: Wed Aug 6th 16:57 PM
      Commented on:
      Greenspan: Still Almost Childlike in His Idealism
      As we know, the US is no longer a market economy - stocks are propped up by the Fed. First Greenspan, and now Bernanke. They brag about being students of the Great D. The fact is, markets are much worse (PER) than they were back then - thanks to the Fed. Basically it is theft - from those with cash and those of future generations. Time to abort this banking culture and get back to an efficient economy. Basic economics tells the story - trade deficit, budget deficit, inflation, unemployment, falling real-incomes, falling profits. As a result, the US is heading to become the next fallen empire.
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    • ON: Sun Jul 20th 20:49 PM
      Commented on:
      Earnings Season: Fundamentally Flawed
      It is all a giant con game orchestrated by the Fed, Treasury and the PPT. It is politically incorrect to state the truth and anyone who attempts to is branded a leper. Announcements by the Fed, Treasury and eg. FDIC are stage-managed so as to have a positive or least-negative impact. The US is no longer a free market. It is a stage-managed market. The C result was a loss, a big loss, $2.5b, but we expected worse, so it is positive news – how ludicrous as the projections show. The US economy is being ruined by bureaucrats and politicians who manipulate the economy and markets for short-term gain. The current-consumer is the insignificant and inconsequential pawn who is worth only slightly more than future consumers of future generations. A bubble in RE to pay for overpriced stocks to be paid for by current consumers and consumers of future generations who are considered mere serfs. What is the purpose? To protect those that put them where they are - the moneyed elite who think they own the earth. The US consumer is running out of steam, so their jobs have been off-shored and the emerging economies used to increase demand for multi-nationals. The strain on the limited resources of the earth creating yet another bubble. There are many, many problems with the US economy. The economy is being “run” (ruined) by bankers (Fed, Treasury), and they appear to think that more and more cheap money is the solution to everything. Trade deficit, budget deficit, USD decline, inflation, unemployment, corporate earnings, RE crash, bank failures. How many signals do these people need to tell them that they are ruining the US economy? Asset-inflation is not wealth-creation. Their answer to that is that it is up to the markets to decide asset values. When markets decide that asset-prices are overpriced, they drop rates and pump in more money. The markets don’t decide, they decide. When the markets say they are wrong, they provide the same solution that created the problem – more cheap money.
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    • ON: Thu Jun 5th 22:25 PM
      Commented on:
      Are Subsistence Wages Killing the US?
      The point I was making is that current legislation allows the 3rd world worker to replace the 1st world worker. These goods are then sold in the 1st world at 1st world prices. The jobs of creative people in the 1st world are being lost. Big companies are the only ones on this side to benefit. Only time will tell where this will lead, however based on current experiences it will lead to destruction of the US economy. The trade deficit, the budget deficit, the loss in value of the USD, the bursting of the housing bubble, the bursting of the dotcom bubble, REAL CPI-inflation over 10%. Don't all of these things spell out an economy that is ruined? The only thing that has kept it going is that all the bubbles have not burst. The Fed is fighting like mad to ensure that the last domino, Wall Street stays high. That itself was a bubble from 1990 to 2000 and was about to burst in 2001. Now Bernanke is holding it up in much the same way as Greenspan did in 2001. This time however there is no housing bubble to absorb the liquidity, there is only stocks. Bernanke has the misguided notion that lessons learnt from the 1930s will solve everything and flooding the economy with cheap liquidity will fix everything. The point he misses is that the way to stop the bursting of bubbles is to stop them forming. They do not do this because their Wall Street cronies would not like it (IMO). The US woke the Asian monsters and now they are about to beat the US at it's own game - consumption. US consumption is on the decline because real wages have declined for over 10 years. The housing bubble replaced those wages, and now that has withered. Companies like GM and Ford have the wrong products that consumers can no longer afford. So what we have is an economy that can no longer afford products manufactered by it's own companies and must import products to survive. Standards of living are declining and will continue to do so inversely to standards in China. To aid that process, the US govt sends out tax rebates for people to spend on cheap imports, further helping the foreign economies. Obviously the US has the wrong people in power and making decisions that shape the future of the US over the next century. Look at the start of this century as a guide.
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    • ON: Thu Jun 5th 06:55 AM
      Commented on:
      Who Benefits When the Fed Floods the System with Liquidity?
      "when Easy Al took interest rates down to 1% and held them there for a very long time, it did not stop the Nasdaq from falling 77%. Instead, the liquidity flowed into housing, ..."
      The dotnet bubble had already burst at that point and the Nasdaq had lost 50%+. The interest rate cuts were to stop the Dow and S&P falling to realistic levels. These cuts began in 2001. The Dow had risen 10 fold (1000%) in 13 years up to its high of 12000 and was then falling. The liquidity did flow into housing of course and cause the bubble.
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    • ON: Thu Jun 5th 06:43 AM
      Commented on:
      Are Subsistence Wages Killing the US?
      Some very interesting comments. What it all boils down to is a class structure designed to benefit the very wealthy and multiply their wealth. Globalization - read: cheap offshore labor, Cheap money - read: don't let the Dow fall, Fed loans on rubbish loans - read: look after your mates. Bankers running the economy with disregard of trade deficits and USD loss-of-value - read: madness. A private central bank - read: madness. Subsistence wages - read: the rich benefit. I totally disagree with the concept that it was inevitable that globalization has to force down wages and thereby productivity is replaced by service industries. It is happening because the powers-that-be let it happen to satisfy Wall Street.
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    • ON: Thu Jun 5th 06:14 AM
      Commented on:
      Bernanke Blames Saving Glut for Housing Bubble
      The US has many economic problems mainly relating to productivity and the service economy they have created at the behest of multinationals and investment banks. The current problems with the housing bubble was caused by Greenspan in order to protect an overpriced stock market in 2001. The Fed is illogical to put it mildly. Greenspan allowed the stock bubbles up to 2001 and when a correction was overdue, he prevented it and created a housing bubble. The US economy has been using asset inflation for about 15 years. It has to end eventually. Creation of liquidity to support overpriced assets is a bad strategy.
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    • ON: Mon Jun 2nd 19:02 PM
      Commented on:
      Pension Debts: The Next Financial Crisis
      I was going to say that it is the job of accountants and actuaries and auditors to ensure that books are in order. I then recalled the chief US federal accountant The Comptroller General is on a crusade to expose the under-provision for government pensions and Medicare. See :
      www.youtube.com/watch?...
      It appears that congress does not have the people with the necessary knowledge to interpret the facts and prevent the demise of the USA, in a similar way to the fall of Rome - inability to fund the empire.
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    • ON: Wed May 28th 17:29 PM
      Commented on:
      Oilsands Quest: Canadian Black Gold
      I don't think it is ALL talk, but there is a lot of talk. Not sure just what this article adds to the knowledge base.
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    • ON: Sun Dec 30th 18:33 PM
      Commented on:
      Why You Shouldn't Own Cameco
      I was coming to the same conclusion. The likely future rise in
      Uranium prices could still make it a winner, but there are likely
      better buys.
      View article »
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