I need more cowbell

Jon Stewart Takes on Goldman Sachs [Video]

From The New Yorker:
The Times.

Internal Memorandum No. 8121b

ATTN: Employees of Goldman Sachs

We did it. Bottom of the ninth, down by three, bases loaded, and we cranked another grand slam to the moon. They may have shot Lennon, but nothing can kill the Beatles.

I admit things looked bleak for a minute there. We had to convert to a bank holding company and were forced to accept a taxpayer bailout. It felt un-American. Terribly unbanksmanly. But we accepted the money, knowing that we could magically weave it into a much larger mountain of money.

We had a few hard months there, didn’t we? They regulated our corporate jet so that we could no longer use it to fly from hole to hole on the green. Dave had to drain his money pool to half capacity. I stopped injecting gold into my blood. They don’t call it a recession for nothing. One day, we’ll look back on the year we received only five-figure bonuses and laugh.

Wanting to celebrate our renewed success is natural, but it’s important that we don’t go crazy here. Remember, ten per cent of the non-bank country is unemployed, and even those who are working have “real” jobs, where payment is proportional to the creation of a “product” or a “service.” Those poor bastards. So I ask that, in celebrating our raping of the stock market, we show restraint in the following ways:


Please limit high-fives and chest bumps to a dozen a day.
Don’t wear your crowns, except around the office.
Stop paying for things in Monopoly money—I understand it is the same as real money to us, but there have been some complaints.
For now, let’s take down the giant scoreboard that reads “Main Street: zero. Wall Street: a billion gazillion bajillion.”

Furthermore, to avoid drawing criticism from the press, this year the bonuses, expected to be comically large, will be distributed in blood diamonds, which can be easily concealed in a briefcase so it looks like we’re working.

I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible—for a second time. Respect to President Obama for keeping us in the green. Thanks to the big guy upstairs (me). And let’s not forget all the ordinary Americans, who, for some unfathomable reason, have refused to put us behind bars. We are literally taking money out of their wallets. Seriously, with these returns we are making Madoff look like a little kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Amateur!

Yours in money,

Lloyd Blankfein, C.E.O., Goldman Sachs

Confidence Games and Ponzi Schemes: No Way to Run the World's Largest Economy

Excellent, Tim. To summarize why consumerism is the US is dead and buried ( for a long time ):
- wealth loss to date is some huge number, $15-20T. Housing continues to revert to the mean, huge losses still yet to come
- will the 50% bear market uptick hold? I doubt it, and when the next crash comes ( I predict the fall, although could be next year, whatever ), any hope will truly be crushed
- cash flows crushed, and still trending downward. Real unemployment is far worse than is being reported
- the American consumer has bought forward everything: cars; TV's; boats; second homes, etc. Cash for clunkers allows yet more forward buying. This means we already have a lot of the non-essentials, bought already.
- Banks aren't lending, folks aren't borrowing, most can't. Credit card companies have pulled way back also.
- total psychological shift; people realize and are highly motivated to reduce debt, then save.
- Stimulus was pitifully constructed, but a pittance nonetheless. Government cant backfill $20T in wealth loss.
- IF, big, IF cap and trade and/or health care is passed, much higher taxes coming. Coming anyway at some point, the national debt has to be dealt with. Or, we default in some fashion, and our remaining dollars are trash and again we cant purchase squat.
- Many jobs are lost forever, exported to emerging countries. If cap and trade passes, existing companies will have to re-locate to other countries so they can compete; US already is second highest country corporate tax-wise.
- Many other jobs are just being eliminated. Think about it; more and more factory robots; check-out kiosks ( stores ); check-in kiosks ( airports ); retail jobs ( buy on-line ); automated toll booths; etc etc.
- There is currrently not ONE idea in DC about true job creation; all the money is being pissed away on cronyism, bank rat-holes, and pure open fraud.

From Obama's weekly address: "When we receive our monthly job report next week, it is likely to show that we are continuing to lose far too many jobs in this country. As far as I’m concerned, we will not have a recovery as long as we keep losing jobs. And I won’t rest until every American who wants a job can find one."

No, please rest. Every idea so far has orwill be a negative for the economy and jobs. Cap and trade would force companies out of the country- insane. The government toying with health care, which is 16% of the economy- insane. Allowing trillions of money to be given to the likes of Goldman Sachs- criminal. Stimulus package squandered to cronies- criminal.
Go take a long 4 year nap.

This Recession Ain’t Over

Wrong, the recession IS over. Unfortunately, it has been replaced with a depression. And more unfortunate yet, it is being worsened every day by the banksters, in close coordination with our corrupt government.

The New Labor Market

Unemployment perfect storm:
- ongoing global arbitrage of cheaper labor
- internet removes necessity of physical location for jobs i.e. customer service calls routed to India
- technology destroying certain jobs forever: factory robots; automated toll booths, check-out lines; airline check-in kiosks, etc
- internet destroying entire industries: newspapers; music industry; cinema; etc. Not completely of course but huge impact

These things were happening anyway; now throw in the collapse of the debt driven consumption economy, 20+ years in the making, and 20+ years in the unraveling; add a government wasting trillions to keep a status quo that is gone forever, and burdenng us with evermore crushing debt, and sayonara employment.

From Obama's weekly address: "When we receive our monthly job report next week, it is likely to show that we are continuing to lose far too many jobs in this country. As far as I’m concerned, we will not have a recovery as long as we keep losing jobs. And I won’t rest until every American who wants a job can find one."

Ladies and gentlemen, so much "he did, they did". This is not about Dems vs. Repubs- they all SUCK. The whole D vs. R thing is just to get you on one Team or the other ( like Sox vs. Yankees ); so if you find as we so often do, some Dem or Repub is either A. corrupt;B. unethical;C. a liar;D. an adulterer; E. all the above; Well he's an asshole but he's our asshole. AND, the other side is so much worse, so we'll give hime a pass.
The problem is there is no outrage anymore, lying, corruption, etc is so commonplace on both "sides" we just shrug. They have us exactly where they want us.
Our wonderful media is fully bought and paid for and complicit. Plus, we have so many new opiates of the masses: hell, Michael Jackson dying was good for 3-4 weeks, while they slipped Goldman Sachs another trillion out the back door. Race-baiting is always good for top headlines, while the men behind the curtain do their thing. Sports, Idol, 150 TV channels, us vs. them politics; all to distract and deflect.
I doubt we will ever learn, though.

A Thoroughly Exhausted Bull Market

More like a "shout at" , which is far better in any event. Being ridiculed by the village idiot is like a doulbe negative, hence positive ( you need to know stuff like this for captcha )


On Jul 22 03:46 PM tunaman4u2 wrote:

> Nice shout out you got on CNBC today, congrats

Deflation Looms

Deflation doesn't loom, it is in the here and now:
- housing continues to deflate, even with gov programs attempting to reflate; not working
- cash for clunkers was good for a quick sugar high; now all those purchases are pulled forward and gone.
- have you been to mall lately? I only buy something that is at least 70% marked down, and it is not a hard search
- I can't believe how cheap my favorite cuts of beef are. Yum.
- restaurants are offering two-fers, kids eat free, etc. This is in Austin, where we are told we haven't been hit as hard
- hotel rates are down 50% if you just look for bargains
- gas prices are the only thing I see that still has pricing power

The people that believe there has not been a seachange in attitude must be blind. The American consumer is not stupid ( anymore that is ); they see beyond the MSM cheerleading, they know the economy is down and out; they see nothing being done to address job creation; they see the out of control DC spending and are rebelling. Once congress gets it that if they want their jobs, they must rein in gov spending, things will really deflate, because that is all the liquidity holding things up to some degree now.

Plus, this is a global issue. Sure, China is still spending, but that cannot go on forever, and they are making the same non-productive lending mistakes we made.

Velocity is shot, wealth destruction of US alone $30T is too big a hole for the Fed or anyone else to fill, and when the crash comes ( and it will ) that will be the final wealth destruction straw.

It's still early to be worrying that stocks are too expensive, JPMorgan analysts say, and they continue to favor the 'recovery trade' - being long risk assets against safer ones. Firm notes "the underlying fundamentals of growth, earnings, and credit quality are improving as fast as asset prices are."

Oh, its far too early for concern. Why, I have never seen our economy in better shape, firing on all pistons. Why, just look at gold sky-rocketing, because of its utility in so many manufactured products.
Huh, what's that you say? Oh, well then, never mind.

Why I'm a Nervous Bull

Why anyone would rely on technical indicators that while successful in the past, have no ability to indicate anything in a totally rigged market. A market characterized by:
- low volume
- days where 5 stocks, think about that very carefully, 5 stocks constitute 30% or more of the TOTAL volume
- most of the action is between robo-trading with a handful of firms; GS, JPM, MS.
- there is every indication that the mney has been supplied by the Fed; present and future taxpayer money is used to prop up the market artificailly
- and oh yes, by the way, the fundamentals have never been poorer; backward looking PE's are astronomical, and forward looking are not only pricing in perfection, but unachievable perfection.

At least well played blackjack in Veagas, the house only has 0.5% edge. This market is 100% rigged.

Commercial Real Estate Cataclysm Underway?

All you need to do is look around. I do a lot of business travel, and it's getting hard to find a restaurant thats still open anymore. And all the for lease signs in strip malls makes it so apparent.
No one is eating out anymore; no one is shopping- if you need something, easier to get it online anyway and save the gas. The lack of inventory on the shelves on the stores that are still open is pathetic.
We are so over-built in this country, relative to anywhere else in the world- way too many malls, hotels, name it.

This Rally Is Sustainable: Halftime Report, Part 2

Insanely poor P/E ratios, cratered earnings and earnings forecast, real unemployment around 16-20%, wages declining, housing and CRE continuing southward, obvious market manipulation, record national debt, record projected more national debt ( accelerating ), wasted stim,er, porkulus going to Dem concubines, record private debt, American consumerism basically dead and buried, it's a complete global problem, no pockets of strength anywhere( that includes China ), the threat of health care being taken over by the government, the threat of the cap and trade tax/business disruption, and the fact all this market propping has been accomplished because of very low volume trading.
Yeah, looks sustainable to me too- all you need is enough greater fools. Hmmm- all those unemployed though, no automatic 401K money going to mutual funds. Come to think of it, maybe the under-employed no 401K either, And, the remaining employed, what are they doing? are companies still matching, or is that being cut back?
Anyone who puts money into this rigged casino just isn't paying attention. But that is what Government Sucks is counting on.

The Cap and Trade Delusion

Not to mention it's all base on the BIG LIe. There is absolutly without a doubt no such thing as man-made global warming, climate change, or any other marketing term they want to slap on it.
- the computer model used to generate the hockey stick upwards temp prediction has been thoroughly discredited, riddled with porr assumptions
- the predicted warming trend not only did not occur, but has leveled off for 10 years, then decresed for two
- CO2 is a greenhouse gas, a pollutant? Beyond ridiculous. It's a trace gas that even if it increases 10 fold would still be swamped out. It only absorbs IR radiation in three narrow spectra.
- does anyone still have science in their lives, read data, not political posturing?


On Jun 30 06:10 AM Steven Hansen wrote:

> when you are in unstable economic times and you shift the energy
> equilibrium - what the hell is the economic outcome??? i do not see
> one genius who can answer this question.
>
> conservation is an extremely slow acting force. yes, it should always
> be pushed but it is not part of ingredients of cap and trade. cap
> and trade is meant to shift sources of energy production.
>
> power plant construction using different energy sources will take
> decades to be felt. i don't know what caused this bee to get under
> somebody's bonnet - but i suggest they go back to school to learn
> the pragmatic realities.

Opinion About Obama Coming Down to Earth?

Obama has put forth more threats to our economy than any prez since Carter. Luckily, the stupidest of them all, cap and trade, which would affect every business, taxpayer, and consumer, was shot down in both houses of Congress.
Now all we have to worry about are all the other attacks on industry he has in his gunsights.
The government builds nothing sustainable; creates nothing but bureaucracy jobs; is incomprehensibly inefficient and wasteful; is riddled with cronyism, graft, and politicians running the show. Politicians which have never created a job, had to make a payroll, invented a product, etc.
Obama's power grab, to sieze more government control over our economy, our personal freedoms, and make more and more sheeple dependent upon the meager gov. handouts is appalling to anyone paying attention.
But, hey, don't waste a crisis.

The Impending Mother of All Oil Shocks

You lost me at global warming. Anyone who uses the BIG LIE in any article does, I have to look ascance at any author's opinions on any other topic if he is not bright enough to understand such a transparent scam.