May 2012

The Never Ending European Financial Crisis

greekdominoesLast Friday we saw horror headlines from Societe Generale.

Euro zone stocks could plummet up to 50 percent if Greece makes a disorderly exit from the euro zone.

Additionally it was proclaimed bank runs have started in Europe.

A bank run is now happening within the eurozone. So far it has been relatively slow and prolonged, but it is a run nonetheless. And last week, it showed signs of accelerating sharply, in a way which demands an urgent response from policy-makers.

Right now the ECB is pressuring the Euro Zone to come up with deposit guarantee scheme to stop depositors from existing the Euro and various European banks:

Now investors are worried about the contagion effect a Greek exit from the euro zone could have on savers in other countries.

"Preventing bank runs in Italy, Spain and Portugal should be the top priority," said Berenberg Bank economist Holger Schmieding. "Policymakers need to make sure that the potential Greek precedent of a forced conversion of domestic euro deposits into a weak new currency would not spark a run on banks ... elsewhere."

The ECB is pressing the euro zone to set up a fund that would prevent this dangerous ripple effect, a message reinforced by ECB policymaker Joerg Asmussen last week.

Facebook Dot Con Redux

You seriously expected to make money on the Facebook IPO?  Sucker!  Why any regular investor would be believe yet another IPO hype machine after the dot con era is beyond me, but suckered in they were.  Now the lawsuits are flying and we have yet another SEC non-action action that they would look into this.  Just the other day, the SEC let Lehman Brothers completely off the hook. The general lawsuit is described below:

Friday Movie Night - Frontline's Cell Tower Worker Deaths & MF Global

hot buttered popcorn It's Friday Night! Party Time!   Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!

 

This week's videos are two shorts by PBS Frontline. The first is about workers falling from Cell Towers. At first you might think, that's an easy fix through safety and regulation. Think again. Literally young boys are climbing up cell towers for $10 bucks an hour. It's a poster child for what has happened to work in America. The cheapest price wins and training, safety, experience be damned. This short puts new meaning to the phrase working yourself to death.

Pay close attention to the description of contracts, the chain of subcontracts all the way down to the worker, who also are contractors, not employees. Use of contracts, contract law to subvert U.S. worker rights, deny benefits and remove any sort of liability is extremely common these days.

The Trade Deficit is a Political Deficit

shipping containersPeople talk a great deal about free trade. But for better or for worse the real world that we live in is more a mercantilist world than it is a free markets and free trade world. And in this mercantilist world there is a fundamental divergence between the goal of our corporations, which is to maximize profit, and the goal of rebuilding manufacturing here in the United States.

CBO Bombshell - Our Congress Will Cause a Recession in 2013

fiscal cliffThe CBO has issued a new report on what all of those automatic budget cuts are gonna do in 2013. They will cause a recession.

Growth in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP in calendar year 2013 will be just 0.5 percent, CBO expects—with the economy projected to contract at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the first half of the year and expand at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in the second half. Given the pattern of past recessions as identified by the National Bureau of Economic Research, such a contraction in output in the first half of 2013 would probably be judged to be a recession.

What the CBO is referring to is the fiscal cliff. Remember when the budget crisis happened, resulting in the United States losing it's AAA credit rating? Then, Congress and this administration just punted, didn't compromise, or better yet, base recommendations on actual economic theory, and allowed automatic spending cuts of $1.2 trillion across the board, to take place instead. These budget cuts will be dramatic and happen in 2012 and 2013.

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