Teutonic Knight

The Good, Bad and the Ugly: Australian, U.S. and U.K. Economies

From a very simplistic and top-level perspective, my read is as below:

Australia will do okay because of its geographical proximity to China which is rising and hungry for her (Australia's) natural resources. Not that China does not have its own abundance of natural resources, they are smart to cash out the weakening dollar awash, to fuel their growth. Australia has that edge over Canada in this regard.

The U.S. Situation is buttressed by its vast landscape. The land is still there and remains available to grow food. This a giant fallback while taking time to recover in the industrial side of the house.

The U.K. does not have those advantages. Key manufacturing capabilities and capacities in auto, electronics, heavy equipment, optics, computers, communications, have long declined. The British Isles soil is thin and which was the driving force for pushing building up the British Empire (1600-2000) to begin with, as it was seeking to export its culture and its people. The financial crown jewel that it wrestled from the Dutch several centuries ago is now in peril.

TK

Charlie Gasparino: Another Crash 'Has to Happen Again'

cranmer - - -

Really? According to the history books, I believe they (the Nazis) had the Communists in Germany hunted down and annihilated. Weren't the Communists leftists too? Please correct me if I am incorrect.

TK


On Nov 08 02:34 PM cranmer wrote:

> The Nazis were leftists - see "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg
>

Charlie Gasparino: Another Crash 'Has to Happen Again'

They have their "..Locale pay special adjustment..." too, you know.


On Nov 07 04:15 PM [e-mail] wrote:

> A greedy, dishonest, ignorant, spendthrift, self-serving and incompetent
> government is the cause of our problems. Until this is changed nothing
> beneficial will ever happen. It sets the standard and the people
> follow, all the way to destruction.

Charlie Gasparino: Another Crash 'Has to Happen Again'

Dennis - - -

Just allow one 2-cent worthless thought from me. You said "...The Second Great Depression is upon us" - - - Would that be more becoming instead to say "...A Multitude of Greater and Greater Depressions leading to the Greatest Depression is upon us"?

TK


On Nov 06 04:14 AM Denis Gould wrote:

> It is amazing that this crisis has changed so little. Banks are set
> to pay huge bonuses, cautious investors (like insurance companies)
> continue to pile on ever more derivative exposure, and people still
> treat markets like casinos rather than venues for investment. Capital
> markets are there to facilitate the efficient allocation of capital
> but that is now so far removed from what they actually do that nobody
> is really aware of it. Only when these things change will we have
> reached the end point, and it looks like the crisis necessary to
> take us there needs to be magnitudes larger tthan the one we have
> just experienced. The second Great Depression is upon us.

In a brief reaction to a "sobering" jobs report, President Obama said he's examining new measures to spur growth and ran off a list of five: road/bridge investment, energy retrofitting, additional tax cuts for businesses to create jobs, boosting credit to small businesses and support for exporters.

Get this straight.

Government does not create jobs. In the present situation, they print more money and issue IOU's to borrow from foreign and domestic investors to fuel temporary tasks. Note temporary is in italics.

Those IOE's have to be repaid eventually.

So, Mr. President, please stop using the words "create jobs".

The government is not a business, nor a charity, and in our case has never made any money. In our case, as a matter, they now owe a lot of money. By "a lot" I mean in the tens of Trillions.

TK

Today's Employment Report: Focus on the Long Term Trends

Politicians made mistakes, they call them "Political Mistakes", and it is always the people who suffer most" - - - [See Note below]

[Note: Quote excerpted from the words of a full colonel (with an Eagle on his shoulder strap) in a 50's black-and-white movie the title of which is forgotten by this commentator.

The movie was about a strayed American Nuclear bomber heading for Moscow, and the colonel was tearfully dragged away from the Air Force Command Center by white-color helmeted MP while uttering those words.]

Teutonic Knight
On Nov 06 09:39 AM Fueled By Randomness wrote:

> Lagging indicator or not, employment will not pick up until the situtation
> in Washington gets sorted out. Few employers wish to hire as long
> as there are new mandates (healthcare "reform") and taxes (cap and
> trade, VATs, repeal of 2003 tax cuts) hanging over their heads like
> the sword of Damocles. It's only logical; why take a risk and expand
> your business when the Congress might soon greatly increase your
> cost per employee and then crush demand with new taxes? Logical indeed,
> except if you're a politician.

Cause for Concern: No Change from the Fed

rick12345 - - -

Or would you rather listen to a former chairman of the NASDAQ now behind bars; or a former knight who play great cricket but waiting to be behind bars; or that someone now in the White House whose cape in his chest reads a "BIG S" and who claimed he could "CAP" unemployment at 8%? The list goes on and on....

TK


On Nov 05 04:55 AM rick12345 wrote:

> The day I start listening to economic advice from a software engineer
> will also be the day they cart me away in a straight jacket. You
> guys are crazy.

Cause for Concern: No Change from the Fed

J-dub - - -

I'm afraid you're quite right, as I just saw the jury returning with the verdict -

"Not guilty, by reason of insanity".

TK

On Nov 05 12:34 AM j-dub wrote:

> Why is everyone soooooooooooooo concerned with everything the central
> bank does?
> Leave threm alone.
> After all, they solved the crisis.
>
> RIGHT?

Cause for Concern: No Change from the Fed

I am an engineer by training and not a seance. However, my inside tells me somehow there is something very sinister about this printing madness.

How could one print itself to richness? Akin to the infamous pain killer drug VIOXX, the side effects will only show up years down the road. Then, it would be too late.

Stay tuned. The market crash occurred in September 2008 and it is now November 2009. Where we are in now is only ACT I Scene II of the Play. As I gaze into the future, I see a new kind of economic hell too horrifying to describe.

Policy Lessons from the Great Depression

Freedoms Truth -

I don't think the present crop senators and representatives are of any leadership caliber. Most are wealthy pedigrees, lawyers, social elites, self-styled self-serving altruistic social workers all jockeying for a "Trophy" limelight position. Everyday they just spend a hundred billion here, another hundred billion there. They have no moral authority to govern as they are responsible for putting the country in a $13T national debt and $1.5T budget deficit, and with 20 million illegal immigrants on the streets tacitly approved by them.

A new political party has to rise up to replace them and the voters are the ones to show them the walking papers.


On Nov 01 10:45 AM Freedoms Truth wrote:

> 1930? 1937?
> The real folly is thinking we are in either cases. We are in the
> 2009 and 2010 timeframe, circumstances, technology, and much more
> is different than the same. There are lessons from the great depression,
> but its not a simplistic 'its just like 70 years ago', when so much
> is different.
>
> The greatest risk to our economy right how is a leadership in Washington,
> DC, that pursues tax, regulation and spending policies directed at
> harming the private sector economy. Of particular concern is the
> triple threat of ObamaCare, cap&trade, and the ending of the
> Bush tax cuts. Together, they represent about a $3 trillion (over
> ten years) tax hike, enough to spiral us into another recession.
> For those looking for historical repeats, its what Roosevelt did
> to the economy in 1937-1938 when he raised taxes.
>
> The second greatest risk/factor is the ongoing deleveraging of the
> economy. If the folks in DC were pro-growth, however, we would get
> through the deleveraging in short order and come out in decent shape.
> That is not destined to happen while Obama/Reid/Pelosi run the government.

Policy Lessons from the Great Depression

Thanks to so many good comments. I just want to add one more thought - my view is that Socialism is not a religion but a disease. The specter of the rise of Socialism as exemplified by the election of the present regime sends chills down my spine.

Policy Lessons from the Great Depression

Bob - -

Very good article. I have just one thought to add to yours.

Real estate prices fell precipitously in 1925 before the onslaught of the October 1929 stock market crisis. In our present situation, the "Housing Bubble" peaked in around 2006, and of course, followed by the September 2008 stock market crash.

Note the difference in the time periods. There was a lag of some 4 years in the Great Depression case, whereas, if indeed we would have another one (whatever magnitude and name) coming, the lag was much shorter, only 2 years. While it is too cursory to compare these two factors in a out of context manner, would you have any comments on thoughts on this observation? Any commentators have any thoughts to enlighten me?

Thanks,
TK

With $770B of the $1.4T in commercial mortgages maturing in the next five years currently underwater, FDIC revises its rules (.pdf) to allow banks to keep loans on their books as 'performing' even when the underlying properties no longer cover the outlay.

I kind of like herbert hoover's "kick the can down the road" description of our government's mentality. This is Halloween night so buying time probably would be helped by an hour of winding back the clock at 3 tomorrow morning.

Except that "kicking the can down the road" may have other perils too. The road maybe winding, the slope maybe steep down, and the road's surface maybe slippery due to ice and water. Look out, it could be a really skidded ride.

Three more Ford (F) plants reject union contract givebacks, bringing the total to 11 plants and dimming Ford's hopes of getting the concessions granted to GM and Chrysler. "This never happens. It’s a vote of no confidence in the bargaining committee and a vote of no confidence in Ford," says a labor professor. (previously: I, II, III)

With continuing key industrial and national administration decisions driven by politics to this extent, our nation will face demise. Click on my image to see TK in prayer for the USA.


On Oct 31 01:08 AM HS1 wrote:

> Ford needs to file BK and tell the super-greedy UAW to go to hell.
> Build the cars in MX, Canada, India, wherever needed, to be competitive.
> The UAW owns Obama and they know it so they don't care about their
> employer. Sick!

Three more Ford (F) plants reject union contract givebacks, bringing the total to 11 plants and dimming Ford's hopes of getting the concessions granted to GM and Chrysler. "This never happens. It’s a vote of no confidence in the bargaining committee and a vote of no confidence in Ford," says a labor professor. (previously: I, II, III)

Here it goes again: "The Too-Big-to-Fail Syndrome" comes back to haunt us...