Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

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Satya_anveshi
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

prad wrote:one possible outcome: everybody will default on their debt. no country, US, EU, Japan will pay their debts. they'll simply play along for as long as they can, and when the time comes, put a sad exression on the face and say they can't do it.

it's like a worldwide default. i can't even beging to hypothesize about the consequences of this. but one thing is for certain: Big finance will be utterly destroyed. perhaps, that will be the biggest positive of it all. as they say, renewal does not happen until the old ways are destroyed, and that will only happen if there is a financial armageddon.
One of the ideas is that why not India too carve out a special area initially with some kind of backing or propping and develop it like Dubai. That bubble will do good for our mainstream economy, suck resources from any/everywhere, provide buy side leverages and when the above event happens, we too will wash it off.

Everyone played this game or ready for it except us.

We call ourselves descendents of chanakya…laanat hai hum pe.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

In the run up to the Obama announcement on banking regulations, Dow is down more than 200 pts. Let's see the circus after the announcement. My gut feel is that it will jump and recover lost ground and then some by this week itself or early next week.

This will be one of those Let's keep home owners in their homes with promise of loan modifications but instead tweak bankruptcy laws to prevent such filings
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Chinmayanand »

Satya-anveshi aka The One in search of truth , you are recommending India to create bubbles and suffer the consequences of bubble bursting... :eek: why do you want to kill the middle class and the poor :?: slow and steady wins the race :) let India keep it that way...
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Obama Says No Bank Should Have Proprietary Trading (Text)
The President’s proposal would strengthen the comprehensive financial reform package that is already moving through Congress.

“While the financial system is far stronger today than it was a year one year ago, it is still operating under the exact same rules that led to its near collapse,” said President Barack Obama. “My resolve to reform the system is only strengthened when I see a return to old practices at some of the very firms fighting reform; and when I see record profits at some of the very firms claiming that they cannot lend more to small business, cannot keep credit card rates low, and cannot refund taxpayers for the bailout. It is exactly this kind of irresponsibility that makes clear reform is necessary.”

The proposal would:

1. Limit the Scope-The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit.

2. Limit the Size- The President also announced a new proposal to limit the consolidation of our financial sector. The President’s proposal will place broader limits on the excessive growth of the market share of liabilities at the largest financial firms, to supplement existing caps on the market share of deposits.
Satya_anveshi
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

durgesh wrote:Satya-anveshi aka The One in search of truth , you are recommending India to create bubbles and suffer the consequences of bubble bursting... :eek: why do you want to kill the middle class and the poor :?: slow and steady wins the race :) let India keep it that way...
Recall the context was within wholesale default, which I believe is a possibility..no or minimal frigging consequences. I believe a limited experiment will be good instead of bad for India. I believe How part is subject to scrutiny not what part.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Stan_Savljevic »

This is a bit of a side-track, but a pointer nonetheless...
Cornell Library Proposes New Model to Keep arXiv Going
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Cornell-L ... _medium=en
‘New York Times’ to charge for Web access in 2011
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/internati ... e83351.ece

It wont be far when money is charged for almost everything just like air carriers do these days, 1c per email in 10 years, i am betting on it.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by James B »

Stan_Savljevic wrote: ‘New York Times’ to charge for Web access in 2011
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/internati ... e83351.ece

It wont be far when money is charged for almost everything just like air carriers do these days, 1c per email in 10 years, i am betting on it.
NYTimes has tried charging for premium content (like op-eds, columns etc) few years ago but it failed terribly. I don't think this will be a success. Web is going more and more towards open and free content rather than other way round (eg: IPL on Youtube for free).
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by amol.p »

Xerox Corp to cut 2,500 jobs

Xerox Corp said on Thursday it plans to cut some 2,500 jobs, or five percent of its workforce, in a cost-cutting move aimed at saving some 200 million dollars a year.

However, we believe revenue will continue to be under pressure until there is a more sustainable economic recovery," Burns said. "To help offset this challenge, we remain focused on cost and expense management and sizing our business to better match current revenue levels."

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 485998.cms

GM's Opel plant in Antwerp to close
......more D&G for EU............

General Motors' Opelbusiness said yesterday it would close its plant in Antwerp, Belgium, this year as part of a plan to cut its production capacity by a fifth.

Mr Reilly said the plan foresaw 8,300 job cuts, including about 4,000 in Germany. GM said the restructuring would affect all its European sites. In addition to Belgium, the group has plants in the UK, Spain, Germany, Poland, Austria and Hungary.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/908b56f2-06f4 ... abdc0.html
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by amol.p »

Surprise rise in new US jobless claims
......from long time I am saying they are using Madrassa maths..........

http://www.ft.com/world/us


Blow to eurozone recovery hopes

The eurozone’s economic recovery has run into resistance this month, according to data on Thursday that cast doubt on the pace of growth across the 16-country region.

Purchasing managers’ indices for this month showed the first overall drop since they started to rebound last February, adding to fears that the robust expansion in economic activity in the second half of last year is not being maintained.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/596af2ea-0672 ... ck_check=1
Hari Seldon
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

My respect, nay admiration for the US system just went up a notch+. The MA special election loss seems to have spurred some rethink and redirection away from the more immediate icebergs.

Sri Obama, standing next to Volker and not the egregious Summers-Geithner duo, proposed fin reform thus:
1. Limit the Scope - The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit.
Bang on. Finally, meaningful reform and real change. Hopium may yet work. Hang on.

Oh, why's the above [proposed reform a big deal, one may ask. In Denninger's words:
It is the essence of Glass-Steagall. It is the proper role of government to grant permission to use the sovereign credit only for the purpose of regulated lending and deposit-taking with strict supervision to prevent lies, scams, schemes, evasion of reserve requirements and fraud.

As I have said repeatedly with taxpayer guarantees come responsibility to act in a responsible fashion and this means no proprietary trading with taxpayer backstops.
More coming from the white house press div:
2. Limit the Size - The President also announced a new proposal to limit the consolidation of our financial sector. The President’s proposal will place broader limits on the excessive growth of the market share of liabilities at the largest financial firms, to supplement existing caps on the market share of deposits.
Common-sensical capital adequacy norms being brought back in from the cold. Time to unwind the excesses of the past decades and do what is right. If they can pull reform piece this off against entrenched bankster+establishment obstacles, America would have lived upto its promise. Amerika will again be the great country of yore, make no mistake about that. Am still surprised the reform move happened so soon. Jai Ho.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by vina »

Hari Seldon wrote:Sri Obama, standing next to Volker and not the egregious Summers-Geithner duo, proposed fin reform thus:
1. Limit the Scope - The President and his economic team will work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit.
Bang on. Finally, meaningful reform and real change. Hopium may yet work. Hang on.
Well. A good start. However, I am a tad disappointed. I think they should have made that applicable to every systemically important financial intitution, not just banks.

By that I mean the buy side as well (no not the mutual funds that are tightly regulated) , but rather scallawags like AIG. Remember, AIG went down for the precise same reason as Lehman (deep loss in proprietary trading) and it was AIG's collapse (it was the counterparty for most CDS , with it's AAA rating) and not really the Lehmann collapse that threatened to get the dominoes rolling. Now if AIG had gone , the entire financial system would have gone (and oh. out of the $85b AIG got some $14b or so went to Goldman, which therefore enjoyed an implicit bailout, but without any of the govt control and oversight that went with the bailout!)

No sire. Half shutting the door wont do. You cant let the likes of Freddie and Fannie and AIG and the rest of them sink the system, even if you prevent the banks from doing so in the future.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

No sire. Half shutting the door wont do. You cant let the likes of Freddie and Fannie and AIG and the rest of them sink the system, even if you prevent the banks from doing so in the future.
Agreed.
What surprised me (pleasantly) was that DC seemed to get started in the right direction despite persistent misdirection from the agents of the moneyed elite - both the insiders and outsiders, deepseated at every level of GOTUS and COTUS. So popular will so quickly managed to challenge elite interests in DC. That is admirable. JMTs of course.

Meanwhile, here's a gem, sort of:Daniel Henninger has an interesting column in the Wall Street Journal on the Fall of the House of Kennedy.
The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy planted the seeds that grew the modern Democratic Party. That year, JFK signed executive order 10988 allowing the unionization of the federal work force. This changed everything in the American political system. Kennedy's order swung open the door for the inexorable rise of a unionized public work force in many states and cities.

This in turn led to the fantastic growth in membership of the public employee unions—The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the teachers' National Education Association.

They broke the public's bank. More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members' dues and spending it on political campaigns. Over time, this transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.

What an irony it is that in the same week the Kennedy labor legacy hit the wall in Massachusetts, the NEA approved a $1 million donation from the union's contingency fund to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. It is this Kennedy legacy, the public union tax and spend machine, that drove blue Massachusetts into revolt Tuesday.

Yes, health care was ground zero, but Massachusetts—like New Jersey, like California, like New York—has been building toward this explosion for years.

This is why New Jersey's Chris Christie won running on nothing. It's why in California Carly Fiorina is within three points of Sen. Barbara Boxer. It's why the party JFK enabled, "the machine," is hitting the wall.

Scott Brown's victory has given the GOP a rare, narrow chance to align itself with an electorate that understands its anger. Now the GOP has to find a way to disconnect from a political legacy that smothered governments at all levels and is now smothering the Democratic Party.
One maynot agree 100% but IMO one has to grant a refreshing perspective. No doubt it is the unfunded liabilities of the public unions that threaten with insolvency almost every level of gubmint the khanate has below the federal level.

Meanwhile, generational warfare has just got off the launch pad. Retirements destroyed and postponed, the oldies are entering the workforce again in record numbers edging out the youngies because the former have medicare and hence cost employers much less CTC than the youngies can hope to do.
"The numbers are incredible," says Andrew Sum, head of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University and a nationally recognized expert on teen employment. "Proportionally, more kids have lost jobs in the past few years than the entire country lost in the Great Depression."
...
Then something changed. Suddenly teens were being expelled from the workforce. It started during the pullback that followed the bursting of the tech bubble, but it never really stopped, not even during the housing- and finance-fueled expansion of the mid-2000s. From 2000 to early 2008, overall employment rose by about 10 million jobs. Teen employment headed in the other direction. By early 2008, teen employment had dropped by more than 1.5 million.
...
The problem is that older workers are crowding out kids. An economic expansion that at its height produced 11 million jobs, as was the case in the 2000s, isn't bad. But it is nowhere near as robust as the economic growth of the 1990s — which upped employment by 17 million jobs — or the increase of 20 million jobs in the expansion of the 1980s. What's more, 12 million people joined the workforce in the 2000s — a million more new workers than the number of jobs created in that period. With fewer jobs to go around, older workers are settling for jobs that used to go to teens. Baby boomers, hurt by recent stock-market downturns, are hanging around longer. From 2000 to 2007, for instance, the number of 55-to-64-year-olds working in the retail industry rose by 553,000. At the same time, the number of teens who were able to snag jobs at stores fell 419,000, from nearly 2 million.
And on and on. Read it all, if you care to.
In a Tough Job Market, Teens Are Suffering Most
Satya_anveshi
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

vina wrote:No sire. Half shutting the door wont do. You cant let the likes of Freddie and Fannie and AIG and the rest of them sink the system, even if you prevent the banks from doing so in the future.
Saar...someone heard you and seems to have some plan

Fannie, Freddie Cannot Exist in Current Form: Frank
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Ma.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Friday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be eliminated as they stand now.

"This committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance, that's the approach rather than the piecemeal one," Frank said.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by SwamyG »

http://moveyourmoney.info/

Moving money from the big banks to smaller local/community banks is starting to get attention. It remains to be seen if such movements will gain traction and affect the big banks in any way.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

PRC is indeed an interesting case study...

China Hits Back at Clinton Over Web

Its no secret that what can be described as 'mainstream' discourse worldwide is dominated by the west - they frame the debate and therefore exercise great influence.

PRC challenges that pattern to a fatal extent. PRC refuses to play the game by the west's rules - in fact it challenges the 'universal rights' notions the west has been peddling relentlessly since WWII. PRC directly and unblinkingly challenges the self-evident superiority of western democracy + western liberty paradigm. PRC is by and large defining an alternate worldview and a respectable one as long as cheeni prosperity is not threatened.

Very interesting times indeed. Of course, I'd rather PRC not 'win' this war of hearts and minds and install its brutality as a legitimate path to prosperity and national success. But am realistic enough to rejoice in the beating the thus far unchallenged western POV has taken - it gives relative lightweights like us a better chance of standing upto western soft-power bullying us into thinking/ talking/ acting against our longterm national interests.

Just 2 cents and all onlee.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

^^^ And as if to add to the thought above....

GDP Revison May Boost China Ranking
China is expected to soon surpass Japan to trail just the U.S., and its revision of 2008 GDP may have pushed it ahead, but with Japan releasing GDP data in February, early indications say it hasn't quite gotten there yet.
Heh heh.
Hajaar H&D value for PRC in edging out ailing Japan in its race to occupy its self-evidently rightful place in the G-2, am sure. Jai Hu.

Heck, at this rate, PRC might make cooking the books respectable. And the west is in no position to complain given the shenangians their best and brightest in wall street, FASB, GSEs (Gubmint sponsored entities like Fannie, Freddie etc) and DC have been upto of late. Jai Ho(pe).

Thank the Lard Dilli appears immune to this shangahai statistics virus (despite fervent jingo pleas for GDP miracles in Yindia). Slow and steady is apna mantra I guess. Jai Ho.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by SwamyG »

Well, doesn't it feel so good to read India can become 3rd largest economy by 2012

Okay the news item cites PwC; I have not been able to trace out the actual source yet. But found this World Banking in 2050 Lots of good projections for desh.

Word Economy in 2050 This accompanies the Banking PDF.

BTW, sorry if all these were already posted :-)
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

After Hummer, I would like to see this brand also owned by Chinese. Ya allah...may this day too come upon us.


Harley-Davidson posts 4Q loss, first in 16 years
Harley-Davidson has come under pressure over the last year as the tight credit markets and the weak economy led consumers to shun purchases of its high-end, heavyweight motorcycles. The company has been reorganizing its business through layoffs, factory closures and shuttering or selling unwanted brands.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

Why Is California Broke?

OK, kindly don't snigger please. Its actually a serious number crunching exercise linked there. Thank you.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

Very interesting op-ed caught my eye. From the ET.

Indira Gandhi the reformer by TT Ram Mohan

Now, the shades of Sri TTR's arguments are almost Andrew jacksonian only. Sample this:
In 1969, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced the nationalisation of 14 banks. At the time, Mrs Gandhi faced a challenge from the old guard in the Congress . She also believed that the private owners of banks were in cahoots with the Swatantra Party. By nationalising banks and sacking Morarji Desai as finance minister, Mrs Gandhi felt she could upstage her opponents within and outside the Congress, bolster her slogan of garibi hatao and gain the votes of the nation’s poor. She succeeded admirably.
Re the bolded part - entirely plausible IMO. The banksters from their recently revealed grip on establishment/elite power circles is frightening indeed. Indira indeed may have done a Jackson on them. And saved Yindia much trouble perhaps.

Perhaps.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Neshant »

Fannie, Freddie Cannot Exist in Current Form: Frank

This is the same clueless joker who in 2005/6 was pushing for more wreckless speculation in the housing bubble. He gets lots of lobby money from banks but tries to CON-vince his clueless voters that he's fighting against banks. He's a real conman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by abhischekcc »

Hari,

Bank nationalization was an anti national move - it was likely advised commies that had her ear in those days. After this, commies took over the labour unions of banks. These two steps combined had given them the power to hold the whole country to ransom.



------------------

Satya, Would anybody buy a Harley stamped Made in China? Part of the mystique of Harley is its origin country.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Neshant »

Anarchy in the UK

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/In ... s-too.aspx

Well, put the U.K. on your radar screen now. That fast-moving blip is one that you need to be tracking.

Without growth, only scorched-earth budget cuts can bring the United Kingdom's deficit under control -- even within five years. And with an election looming, neither the government nor the opposition is laying out a budget-cutting plan capable of convincing global financial markets that the country is committed to a solution.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

abhischekcc wrote:Satya, Would anybody buy a Harley stamped Made in China? Part of the mystique of Harley is its origin country.
That's the point. This will be such a drubbing the chest thumping redneck jingo market will receive when they know the suckers have been driving a made in china or china owned stuff. Same with "let's attack Eyerack and Eyeraaan" Hummer owning crowd. It is time the US start making amends and these two are symbollic of that. Add to that the model of GM, Ford, Chryslers which once symbollized the American auto industry and world domination are now kaput.

Who are the losers and winners if these companies die down after China buys them out? :)
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by shyam »

Do not underestimate Ford. It is controlled by a major American family.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

^^^ Abhishekcc, somewhat agree with your point. Somewhat only. Mussay the recent pre-depression has forced many old fond notions to undergo introspection only.

Meanwhile, from here:
https://twitter.com/AutomaticEarth
The best and latest roundup in ekhanomic (D&G ish?) news....
During first 11 months of 09 China raised its holdings of Treasury securities by just $62bn.Less than 5% of the money Treasury had to raise.
Can't be good for the Almighty dollah now, can it? Turns out, I think the USD will do just fine and might even rise in the coming months against Gold, the euro and etc. Deflationist logic only. DollahoAkbar!
One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people, new figures show - http://bit.ly/8wx310 (Terrible initiative, terrible policy)
Agreed. No wonder grain prices worldwide rose so much in the past few yrs. UN food programs in the subsaharan Afreeka and all are complaining, legitimately that their budgets are stuck at 2002 levels.
20 Mn Americans collected unemployment benefits last yr.25 states have run out of funds,see which ones here-http://bit.ly/50KYSS (cool map)
After a while numbers become merely, numbers. The quant crowds out the qualitative understanding of the reality behind the numbers. Until the next tipping point erupts onto tv screens, chalta rahega, IMO.
So 5 banks failed yesterday, FDIC friday party cost a cool $531.7 Million.

FDIC Friday party has started people - Premier American Bank in Miami, cost to DIF is $85 Mn
Half a trillion this friday? AMong the bigger black friday busts the fdic has seen in a while, I bet....

Added later:
More (older) tweets but in line with the dhaga ethos IMHO.
The Great Recession Continues - http://bit.ly/5ZHvLD, 15.3 Million Americans out of work, tax rises ahead.

BLS reports that in Dec 44 states reported significant decline in employment.Largest losses in California,Texas,Illinois,Florida & Michigan.
Bernanke fate in doubt as US Senate opposition swells - http://bit.ly/8WqHJz

DOW loses 552 points over past three days, capping it's worst week since February 2009.
Problems pile up for post-crisis world - http://bit.ly/4Pme6M (Since when did we become post-crisis? I guess even the rich need kool-aid)
OKie dassit from me. Have a nice week, all.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Tanaji »

OT:

Just a quick note to congratulate the Man from Foundation for and all the others for contributing to this excellent thread since it has now reached 100 pages, probably the first after Nukkad threads. It has been educative and entertaining for me, even if some say its D&G all the way. A lot of articles were posted that normally dont get reported in the main stream media....

Thanks again to all, especially for keeping it free of acrimony.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Savor this folks - IMO a must read. I consider the below report as one of the most valuable report I read on ZH.

The $700 Billion U.S. Funding Hole; Desperately Seeking A Very Indiscriminate Treasury Buyer
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by SwamyG »

I promised myself that I will write something about Corporations this weekend. I summarize (and sometimes borrow words/sentences) from the book "Life, Inc" written by Douglas Rushkoff. The reason I wanted to write about Corporation is because of the recent US Supreme Court campaign finance ruling that says the US government can not limit corporate spending on elections. So here goes my understanding of the birth and evolution of the organism called Corporation. It was born in Europe, matured in USA and now has been globalized.

******
Corporations
Birth
1. In 13th century, merchants became the intermediary between town and the country, forming a link in the chain connection the movement of goods between producer, merchant and retailer.
2. Merchants became wealthier, the aristocrats longed to be part of the new evolving economy as their wealth and influence dwindled.
3. In the earlier economy, the peasants’ life was greatly limited but was self-sufficient. In the new economy they had to market the only marketable skill they had – physical labor.
4. Aristocrats and merchants needed a new mechanism through which they could invest their capital. The traditional family business that shared labor, risk, capital and blood ties were not sufficient. The first “limited parternship” firm in Florence came about. New laws, contracts and standardized currencies were the need of the day to conduct business across regions with different kinds of people.
5. The need to secure capital from a wider range of regions and social classes ended up in forming Joint Stock Company.
6. The aristocracy exercised their authority to sanction a new kind of chartered body – The Corporation. The Church had a tradition of ‘incorporating’ group of monks into single entities.
7. The Corporation was not a business or a government entity – but a combination of the two.

Pre and Post WWI
1. With help of Abraham Lincoln, the Railroad companies won the right to break unions, hire immigrants for up to a year and device strong contractual advantages that people did not have. Corporations began to have rights that normal humans did not have.
2. In 1886, a Supreme Court clerk managed to document a judge’s opinion into the headnotes that helped Corporations to claim the rights of personhood.
3. Over the course of decades the evolution of Corporation into a person also saw the devolution of citizens into consumers.
4. Industrialists sought to develop a culture that was more sympathetic with corporate prosperity. So they funded public schools that helped create a docile work force. Stanford’s Ellwood P. Cubberley helped design a public school system based on Prussian method that sought to create “mediocre intellects….and ensure docile citizens”.
5. Woodrow Wilson with the help of practitioners of a new science – Public Relations help set up the Creel Commission – to change America’s mind.
6. Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, played an important role. He believed masses were too stupid to make decisions for themselves when it came to global affairs or economy. The thought was to have enlightened and informed elite to make decisions and “sell” them to the public in the form of media campaigns. This way masses began to believe they were coming up with the opinions themselves.
7. In the years to come, Bernays and people like him believed that such elite people were not found in government chambers; so they began to look for elites in the corporate boardrooms. Consumers were thought to be easily pleased than citizens.
8. By 1940, things were moving towards a form of society where the power flowed to corporately governed industrial society. Corporate funding became a necessity to put somebody in the government.

WWII and Post WWII
1. Mass media began to play further greater role in shaping the people’s mind. Marketing through media became a kind of science.
2. Industrialists produced goods, moved it through railroad companies, and people consumed these goods. TV commercials prepared these consumers and made them ready for these products.
3. Suburbs began to grow faster; and people began to further lose dependence on each other. This meant depending on Corporations.

What this all meant
1. Corporatism favored selfish over the social, the brand over the product, and central over the local.
2. It is akin to how the invention of monotheism disconnected people from the forces of nature; corporations disconnected people from each other.
3. This makes people depend on one central authority than depend on each other or on local products and relationships.
Kaushik_S
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Kaushik_S »

Tanaji wrote:OT:

Just a quick note to congratulate the Man from Foundation for and all the others for contributing to this excellent thread since it has now reached 100 pages, probably the first after Nukkad threads. It has been educative and entertaining for me, even if some say its D&G all the way. A lot of articles were posted that normally dont get reported in the main stream media....

Thanks again to all, especially for keeping it free of acrimony.
I concur. Wholeheartedly. My sincere thanks to Hari Seldon for his tireless efforts, amazing insights, and frequently superb turns of phrase:)
Neshant
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Neshant »

Economic Black Hole: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... to-recover
Singha
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Singha »

WSJ: Sams club to shed 11000

Sam's Club To Shed 11,000 Positions

By STEPHANIE SIMON

Sam's Club, engaged in a tough struggle to stand apart from competitors, is cutting about 11,000 jobs and is turning to an independent marketing firm to handle in-store product demonstrations at its warehouses nationwide.

About 10,000 of those jobs, or about 9% of the Sam's Club work force, will come from outsourcing product demos at the company, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Most of those jobs are part-time, the company said Sunday.

Brian Cornell, president and chief executive of Sam's Club, said the move was aimed at boosting sales and customer loyalty, not cutting costs. "Operationally, we see this as a net neutral," he said. Mr. Cornell added that he expects many of his laid-off workers to be hired by the marketing firm, Shopper Events LLC of Rogers, Ark.

Shopper Events already runs product demos at Wal-Mart stores. That program, branded Bright Ideas, hands out 2.8 million samples a week but also offers diet and cooking tips, such as how to core a pineapple. The firm mixes and matches items from throughout the store—setting up a Wii Fit videogame, for instance, next to an array of low-calorie snacks.

Shopper Events charges Wal-Mart $200 per store per day for its demos, according to the firm's Web site. Brian Pear, vice president and general manager of Shopper Events, said the price would be similar for the Sam's Club program, dubbed Tastes and Tips. His goal: "To educate Mom on the key aspect of brands…and thus drive sales," Mr. Pear said.

Sam's Club has lagged Wal-Mart stores in its profit margins, and within the company was perceived as "clearly bringing up the rear, so something needed to get done," said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting firm.

Sam's also has struggled in some markets to compete with warehouse giant Costco Wholesale Corp. Earlier this month, Sam's closed 10 underperforming stores, many of them in California, a Costco stronghold. Mr. Cornell, the Sam's Club president, said the new product-demo contract would help his stores stand apart from rivals.

"Our entire goal going forward is to differentiate our business," Mr. Cornell said. Customers have said repeatedly that they want a more enjoyable shopping experience, he said, and he expects Sunday's move to "drive growth, improve loyalty and ensure we're really reaching out."

But some customers said that better free samples weren't exactly what they had in mind when it comes to an improved shopping experience.

"I would like them to have full employment on the cash register and checkout lines," said Gary Pope, an attorney in Columbia, S.C., who shops at Sam's Clubs regularly. "Some stores you'll have 40 people backed up in line and two people working the register. That's been a problem."

Sam's Club had previously described its in-house product demo team as a strength, noting in a news release 15 months ago that "these individuals take special pride in their jobs," spending 16 million hours a year to perfect recipes such as mini beef wellingtons and quesadilla trumpets to enliven the shopping experience.

Analysts said hiring an outside firm to take over the job made sense and would likely boost sales. "Letting a company that specializes in in-store demos focus on that is probably more efficient," said David Strasser, a retail analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott LLC.

The company said as part of the plan, it is eliminating 1,200 jobs—about two per store—by cutting an initiative to attract new business membership.

----
gee and this is a discount retailer supposed to do better in hard times.
vera_k
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by vera_k »

Singha wrote:gee and this is a discount retailer supposed to do better in hard times.
Ordinarily that would be true, but this division of Walmart is competing with Costco. The Costco near us just bought another strip mall use as an overflow parking lot.
SwamyG
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by SwamyG »

Neshant wrote:Economic Black Hole: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... to-recover
Points #3 and #4 do not matter much. US population has increased from 1948, so one can not go by just the absolute numbers, one needs to look at percentages. I lost interest in the article, looks like the author is just trying to grasp at thin air. Look @ #20, that is no reason why one should throw the towel. Well there are some good points there; but there is no way that all 20 points are worth their salt. By adding so much chaff he has diluted his message - not a good article.
Neshant
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Neshant »

Are we about to see an explosion in the interest rate? are people who saved their fiat money about to get some great rewards for lending their capital to governments or am i just kidding myself here? Why do i get the feeling savers and anyone responsible with their money are going to be hosed through devaluation and other scam artistry.

-----

No Way Out For Japan

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... japan.html

Kyle Bass: I do not think Japan has a way out of this.

David Faber: Why Not?

Kyle Bass: You have a secular decline in population, and you have a huge funding structure at below market rates. So Japan's weighted cost of capital is only 1.4% and their sovereign balance sheet is much worse than the rest of the developed world. If their cost of capital goes up 250 basis points, their interest expenses of the government will exceed their total government revenue, and it can't even get there [that high].

David Faber: Now their debt is held there as opposed to us where our debt is held by foreigners, in Japan it's mostly citizens.

Kyle Bass: That's right. In the United States about 57% of our debt is held externally. In Japan 6% of their debt is held externally. 94% is held by the people, the pensions, and the life [insurance] companies. What's happening now with the population decline, all the buyers of their debt are turning to sellers. And the largest pension fund in the world in Japan told the Ministry of Finance in May that they are going to be a net seller from now on. So their buyer's base is disappearing and if they have to go to the international capital markets to raise money, they can't exist. It's an awful social problem for Japan.
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by amol.p »

Ericsson says profit shrinks, to cut 6,500 jobs

Swedish telecom giant Ericsson said Tuesday its net profit fell by 92 percent in the fourth quarter due to the costs of a restructuring plan in which 6,500 jobs will be cut.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 498017.cms
Neshant
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Neshant »

December home sales down nearly 17 percent

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/December- ... et=&ccode=
shaardula
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by shaardula »

way out of my league here. admins, apologies in advance if it does not belong here
Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village Turned Over To Creditors

The financially troubled owners of two massive apartment complexes that sold for a record $5.4 billion a few years ago said Monday they're turning them over to their creditors.

The joint venture ownership team led by Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, hurt by the real estate market collapse, couldn't make a multimillion-dollar loan payment earlier this month for the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments in Manhattan.

Over the last few days it became clear the only viable alternative to bankruptcy would be to transfer to lenders control and operation of the 110 buildings and 11,000 apartments overlooking the East River, partnership spokesman Bud Perrone said.

"We make this decision as we feel a battle over the property or a contested bankruptcy proceeding is not in the long-term interest of the property, its residents, our partnership or the city," Perrone said in an e-mailed statement.

The group bought the complexes, which have about 25,000 tenants, in 2006 at the height of the real estate bubble in the nation's largest residential real estate deal.

The record purchase price seemed outrageous to many real estate analysts, but the partnership believed it had a winning strategy: It would aggressively convert thousands of rent-regulated apartments occupied by middle-class families into luxury units that would fetch top dollar.

But the tactic was a bust as the city's housing market cooled considerably. Ratings firms estimated the value of the 80-acre area had fallen to as little as $2 billion – far less than the outstanding loan balance.
Hari Seldon
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Re: Perspectives on the global economic meltdown

Post by Hari Seldon »

^^Thanks for the encouraging words, Kaushik and Tanaji. I fully expect this dhaga to get locked soon and a new one (mark II) take off. Seems I can't keep moiself away from this dhaga for too long anyway. Have been happy to see an irreverent tone preserved throughout the dhaga that results in us not taking things too seriously in here and therefore peace prevails.

Meanwhile, UK-stan pips another milestone (one among many past and more to come, IMHO).

UK Credit Cards, Mortgages & Loans Now Exceed the Value of the UK Economy
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, January 25, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- According to a recent research study by ThinkingMoney, UK Household debt has reached a staggering GBP1.35 trillion in June, more than the country's Gross Domestic Product, which is estimated at GBP1.33 trillion. This means the UK's 60 million people currently owe more than the entire country can produce in one year. With the UK having the seventh largest GDP in the world, this is deeply concerning.
Only to the Brits, the Eurozoners would argue. UK-stan is on only its own too-big-to-fail list and none-other's in the sense that nobody'll rush to extend lines of credit to UK-stan in the event of a sovereign default. That's all.
Those carrying the bulk of the debt include young families and 20-something adults who have just purchased their first home. Today, many members of this demographic carry GBP10,000 to GBP15,000 worth of student debt, in addition to a mortgage that equates to three times their annual income.
The edu bubble burst is a mere year or 2 away from a giant burst. IMHO.

But don't gemme wrong, its not like the sky is falling, like, tomorrow. The game can and will continue a while longer. How much longer can UK linger, who knows? What we do know now is that the happy-glory days are over and not returning in a hurry. Downside is majorly up and upsides are majorly down, now on, for UK-stan among other tfta khanomies.
Thirty years ago, this simply wasn't the case, since mortgages would only require one and three-quarter years worth of income. Also contributing to the problem is wages, which remain relatively unchanged during the past thirty years when compared to the rising costs of living.
Agreed. I recall Liz Warren speaking on the calamitous rise in the cost of living for a given comparable wage for the median US family from the 50s to the mid-2000s. Even in hindsight, hard to see how such massive asset bubbles were lost sight of by those who should've known better (regulators, Fed, economists etc).
As a result, the number of county court judgements for debt, bankruptcies, repossessions, and insolvencies has skyrocketed while credit scores fall. To prevent these problems and improve credit, says Tahera Dudhwala, Editor of ThinkingMoney, consumers need to shop around for their financial products.
Re the bolded part above, thats exactly what the UK-stanis did w.r.t. Icesave of Iceland. We all know how that ended, no? UK-stan drudged out its anti-terror law to freeze Iceland's assets in Uk-stan in a callous act of terror against a fellow tfta.Can you think of what they'd do if their ire were directed at some turd world backwater, eh?

Anyway, Jai Ho.
Locked