I recommend tracking the Iceland situation. The following videos are a good breeze over the latest developments. The socialist leftist government of England invoked terrorism laws against Iceland for the sake of trying to get at more of Icelands assets. Just goes to show you that you can not trust a liberal around a legal system. They do not care a bit about your life. But do not pay your taxes and you'll be in some serious trouble even maybe called a terrorist!
The U.K. is trying to force Iceland into giving up its claims on arctic oil and gas in compensation for their losses with Icelandic banks. Nevermind the glaring non sequitur that U.K. investors lost money in a private bank and not with the Icelandic government.
It really bears watching because ordinary citizens that had no dog in the hunt are being asked to pay for what private banks did. That's like running out onto the street and randomly grabbing some stranger and making him liable for my debts. What is so central and bears watching is that there are many situations in the world economy where the innocent bystander is going to be asked to pay. This may have flown in yesteryear but factoring in the internet these politicians might find a whole new era ushered in. The best thing that could happen is that all banks that have failed to fully do so with out any government support. Investors must learn that the saying of the day is caveat emptor and that there are no citizens standing by with ambulances to cart them of if they make a mistake.
Governments trying to institute a program against the will of the people? Its part of a revolution that is coming to a town very near you. More on Birgitta Jonsdottir.
53 trillion in debt outstanding in the economy as reconned by the Federal Reserve
Consumers have hit debt wall
Private business has hit debt wall
State and Local government have hit debt wall
Only Federal government debt and "bets on financial activity" are still going up – attempt to keep up the charade?
debt to GDP – very stable until mid 1980’s – had very low interest rates during 1950’s and 1960’s – did not have unsustainability – he blames deregulation
In 2000 per capita credit declined – Greenspan cranked open credit and created the bubble – then we ran into the credit wall
You can see the credit wall in the graph
How to get the economy moving again? How get debt ratio down to level of year 2000? – You would have to take 50% off of the debt outstanding or increase GDP significantly and thereby increase consumer income
What will the outcome of continuing to pull forward demand by borrowing by the federal government?
What is the outcome of placing ever larger bets on the price of commodities and equities by financial institutions?
There is no way to get the GDP to grow again without consumers income increasing
Appears to be a mathematically impossible attempt to stimulate the economy
To the individual – make sure you have a sturdy desk nearby that you can get under in case of economic earthquake.
I know alot of Argentinians – they have all been very nice people. That being said their naivite regarding the applications of morals in government is their undoing. Their theory propounded in the video is that their government sold them out. However I posit that your government will always sell you out. It is populated by people with large egos and very good self images. Would you expect them not to treat their wonderful selves to as many goodies as they can gulp down? I would also suggest for instance in the petroleum industry their real problem as a lack of a dynamic private sector petroleum industry. By in the beginning establishing a government petroleum company they eliminated the possibility of a dynamic private companies.
Its sad to see such good people put such belief in "morals" or what is "right". For this rarely has any bearing on the outcome. Only by playing the games of real politik can you maintain your freedom. Something Americans should consider.
I have seen this kind of stability analysis applied before. It is valid for circuits and system functions – I would posit it is valid for economic systems
When economies start using debt to drive employment things are ok for a few economic cycles – then you hit a last cycle when debt taken on is huge – the economic levitation ends – the economy shuts down.
The blue trace with loops is a tracing of oscillator "squegging" as we call it in electrical engineering – parametric modulation
because private debt levels are so high private deleveraging can overwhelm government deficit spending
writing off the bad debt – a.k.a. recognizing the bad debt is the only solution
to stabilize the system the system should be tweaked to limit the amount of personal debt individuals are willing to take on – base housing loan prices on rents you can get for said house instead of what appraisers conjure up
The presenter examines the worst jobs of the dark ages and selects what he considers to be the worst. After selecting he performs the job to see what it was like. Worst jobs up to 1066.
Viewing Notes
hard – messy – frightening jobs
written history starts with Roman invasions
Gold Mining: romans wanted gold – was in south west Wales – was deep underground – was used as a means of punishment – Wales was plundered for healthy people to mine the gold. The gold comes up in veins so you have to chase the vein. Hot in summer and cold in the winter. Dusty. Dangerous because the Romans were always coming up with new methods. Fire setting – fill an area full of wood and set it on fire. Heat the rock up then toss water on the rock. The rock would shatter and have to be carried out by hand.
Plowing land: Acre = amount of land you could plow in one day. That is with the old fashioned wooden plow.
Construction – wattle and daub fencing- weave a fence with green sticks – then daub with water / straw / mud / dung. Dung acts like a binding agent for the mud. Straw holds the daub together when it cracks during hot weather.
Corn Stone – "the daily grind". Takes 3 to 4 hours to grind enough flour for a family of 12. Children were used to gather firewood.
Bog Iron Hunter – In Saxons time they used Bog Ore. 40 kg of bog ore per day to support one smelter. Poking into the bog with a stick.
Charcoal production – each village would have had its own charcoal maker. 3 tons of wood in a pyramid shape covered by dirt. Set on fire to make charcoal. Designed to smolder and not full on burn. Took about 100 hours to finish. Charcoal makers would nod off to sleep and risk the batch. Thus they made a one legged stool so if they fell asleep they would fall over and wake up.
Coin maker – were not paid – got bed and board. Shaving off a sliver was punished with castration. If a whole coin went missing a hand was cut off and nailed to the door.
Monastery – Monks had to do the same things as everyone else but they had the day job. Atonement – suffering to prevent other people from going to hell. Saint Cuthbert would wade out into the ocean in the winter and pray for 8 hours at a time. Copying texts in cold conditions because they did not have glass they needed to be near a window or door for light. Books were valuable and thus a target for Viking raiders.
Viking warrior – Viking boat had room for 16. Alot of rowing involved when there was no wind. Had to sleep on the boat. No toilet. Smelly. Not alot of food. Bad sea weather. Boat portage – carry the boat over the hill. Repairs away from home were not a good idea. Roll the boat along runners on the ground. Runners must be greased with mashed up fish.
Gillymot egg collector – seabird. Collection of the eggs from cliff ledge
This is more an economic and political history of Britain than anything else. The economic and political epochs of Britain are covered with nothing else talked about. Even cultural events mentioned have strong bearing on economics with an example being a massive party that was the prototype rave. Raves of this type are pay for entry models and more an economic effort than a party as much as they are talked up to the opposite.
Britain was on the edge of bankruptcy at the end of world war 2. They owed money to the USA and at the same time they wanted to undertake a huge welfare effort including socialized medicine. Sound familiar? Sounds like the USA to me in 2009 under Obama. If you have interest in economics you need to watch all 5 of these shows. In many ways the USA appears to be squarely on the same path as this has been empire.
…..And just so you know Britain paid off the last of the loans from this era in the 2000’s.
From video description: Britain in 1945; the country is victorious but nearly bankrupt. As Clement Attlee’s Labour government sets out to build ‘New Jerusalem’, Britain is forced to hold out the begging bowl in Washington. Though Ealing Studios produces a series of very British comedies and there is a spirit of hope in the air, the British people’s growing impatience with austerity threatens to take the country from bankruptcy to self-destruction.
A friend who is a professional trader has stopped trading stocks for the summer. This is not a lame 1 man day trader operation. This is a fully professional team with one fellow specializing in trading and the other focusing on the custom trading tools. Thus you can assume what affects them probably affects alot of other large firms.
Here is the break down of the situation in his words:
Here is just a small example of little things that nobody hears about:
When you’re primarily a liquidity provider and trying to make pennies and your effective tax rate quadruples it makes things difficult. Lots of liquidity is going to dry up for folks who want to invest too if they kill those responsible for the markets working under the veil of "punishing those evil wall street barons" For example say your total commission on making a penny is 0.35 cents. After raising the fees to 1.5 pennies you are losing money. Only so much of your commission is negotiated with your clearing broker. The majority is a passthrough SEC fees. Now assume you are expecting a winning of a trade if (roughly) normal probability distribution with 2 std. deviations of trades lying under 1.5 cps profit you have now shut down over 95% of your trading.
Remember those numbers are per 1 mil transacted easy to do when you’re making pennies providing lots of liquidity for other market participants. So now you can see these trades are poof !…gone.
The talking idiots like John Stewart can joke about how it is a "$20 increase they’re complaining about…greedy hairy backed old white republicans" Stewart is a paid fool whose job does not require any mathematical homework. This does not bode well for liquidity.
This is the organ chart of socialized medicine. It has kidneys, spleens, liver and onions and a whole lot of other organs your body does not.
Congressmen must be very good engineers. The reason I say this is because as an engineer I feel there is very little chance I could mathematically model the chances of success. In fact more often than not when machines are this complicated they fail often and hard. Thus I can only conclude that congressmen are smarter than I am. In fact they must be demigods. A god something bigger than Mercury and less than Jupiter. And on a final note you maybe wondering where you are on this map of the corpus governmentus. You reside on the rings around Uranus. And thus you can assume the worse. The flavor of the day will never change.
