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Top 10 at 10: Obama grows a pair, but too late; China’s global warming super powers; The Joker on the bailout; Dilbert
January 22nd, 2010Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10am. I welcome your additions and comments below or please send suggestions for Monday’s Top 10 at 10 to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz We are very culturally sensitive (about landlords) at interest.co.nz
1. Obama grows a pair – If only he’d done this a year ago. US President Barack Obama announced plans overnight to break up the ‘Too Big to Fail’ banks and restrict them from riskier proprietary trading. It seems the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat in Congress has got the message through to him and passed his gatekeepers that American taxpayers are furious about the massive bailouts of public money given to banks. D’oh.
Gillian Tett at the FT.com captures the mood best with this piece, which compares banks to the fluid metal villain in Terminator II. Just when you thought they were dead, they’re back.
It is not hard to understand why this has happened. Blame it, if you like, on the “plastic pitchfork” threat. In the last 48 hours, or since the Democratic party suffered a shock defeat in Massachusetts, e-mails have been circulating among key Democratic party support groups demanding that the Obama administration aggressively clamp down on the banking world, to regain voter trust.
Or, as one influential mass e-mail I have seen puts it, some Democratic funders have threatened to start demonstrating with “pitchforks (plastic!)” – unless the government showed that it was willing to take on the banks. Faced with that threat, which is merely the tip of a wider iceberg of voter anger, the Obama administration has acted; no doubt it now hopes that the pitchforks will vanish – or be directed.
Obama’s problem now is he has to get it past a senate where he has lost control, thanks to his own bad decisions to appoint Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, and to reappoint Ben Bernanke. I said quite early last year that Obama was a liar and a fool for promising change but sticking with Bush’s economic policies. He seems to have finally worked out Americans don’t like donating their cash to make bankers in Manhattan wealthy.
He also seems finally to be listening to former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker (a hero to many including me), who Obama appointed as an advisor and then studiously ignored for the first year. Volcker has been calling for smaller, simpler banks for 18 months. Obama even called plans to stop banks from proprietary trading the ‘Volcker rule’ in his full remarks. Here’s the transcript. HT Kevin.
A pity. It’s too late for Obama now. He is a lame duck President and that will be confirmed after the mid-term elections on the first Tuesday in November.
2. Lobbyists win – I regularly criticise the influence of corporate lobbyists on US policy making, particularly around trade. It’s why I’m very wary of a free trade agreement with the US. It would just open the door for pharmaceutical and studio lobbyists to monster Pharmac and our internet freedoms. Now the US Supreme Court has just overturned a set of campaign finance reforms that would have restricted corporations from spending lots of money to influence Congress. Obama will now find it even harder to get his health care and financial reforms through.
A lot of New Zealanders don’t understand just how pervasive and powerful corporate lobbyists (named K street after where lobbying firms are based) are in America. Here’s an earlier story I did on why an FTA with America is a bad idea. I love free trade, just not free trade with corrupt policymakers.
Here’s the New York Times story to give readers an idea of how momentous this decision is.
Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.
The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.
The 5-to-4 decision was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted.
3. Going the other way - Meanwhile, Australia has ruled out any introduction of a tax on banks, hoping to attract bankers to Australia’s fair shores, Bloomberg reported. So maybe the Geneva of the South Pacific will be in Sydney?
The higher taxes planned for financial services firms in the U.S. and in the U.K., home to the biggest bailouts by taxpayers, are an opportunity for Australia, the country’s minister for financial services, Chris Bowen, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today.
“We’re not going down that road at all,” Bowen said, referring to higher taxes on bonuses for bankers, in the interview in Hong Kong. “We don’t see we have those sorts of issues.”
Australia needs fewer rules and lower taxes on overseas investors and financial institutions to become a financial center, the Australian Financial Centre Forum said in a Jan. 15 report. Bowen said today he “got that message loud and clear,” amid competition from cities including Singapore and Hong Kong.
“The key word is certainty,” said Bowen. “So people getting Australians to manage their funds or investing in Australia know upfront what the tax treatment is going to be.”
4. So damn hot – China’s GDP grew at an annualised rate of 10.7% and the economy is now in danger of overheating unless the central bank and the government slam on the brakes by slowing lending growth and raising interest rates, BusinessWeek reported. Inflation is heating up. This is a worry for the rest of the world because China is now the engine room for growth globally, given America is faltering into what looks like a double-dip recession.
Inflation accelerated to a more-than-forecast 1.9 percent in December and gross domestic product climbed 10.7 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing yesterday. Since October, policy makers have said managing inflation expectations is one of the government’s central objectives.
“The impression that strong inflation is back clearly matters to officials seeking to dampen rising inflation expectations,” said Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London who worked at the U.K. Treasury as an adviser on China from 2005 to 2007.
Officials will also allow the yuan to appreciate after holding it unchanged since July 2008 to aid exporters, yesterday’s survey showed. The yuan will increase about 3 percent by the end of this year against the dollar.
5. China’s muscle flexing – This is an old article by Mark Lynas in The Guardian from December 22 in the immediate aftermath of the failure of global warning talks in Copenhagen. It’s worth pointing to now because it is useful ‘fly on the wall’ reportage of how China monstered the developed world to gut any concrete moves to control carbon emissions. It’s one of those slow burning (pun intended) stories. As China’s economy grows (it’s now the world’s biggest exporter and its 2nd biggest economy) its political power is growing. This was an interesting demonstration of that power. Can we trust China? Google (another large nation state) has decided not. I wonder.
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.
To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.
6. Henry’s higher taxes - The Tax Working Group and the government are watching the Henry review across the Tasman very closely for signs of corporate tax cuts. Treasury Secretary Ken Henry came out yesterday with a speech saying the government would actually have to raise more (not less) taxes in future to pay for baby boomer pensions and health costs. This surprised a few people, including Peter Martin at The Age. HT Keith Ng via Twitter.
Treasury boss Ken Henry has dashed expectations that his review of the tax system will pave the way for lower tax, declaring that over time Australians will have to pay more.
Addressing a conference in Sydney, Dr Henry said Australia’s tax system had to be prepared for the probability that, as the population ages, government revenue needs ”will grow strongly in the longer term”.
”Generally, older people demand a lot more from governments, especially in health and aged care services,” Dr Henry said.
7. ‘Command China vs Network China’ - Thomas Friedman at the New York Times makes an interesting argument around Internet freedom in China in the wake of the Google kerfuffle and how there are now two Chinas. They are: ‘Command China’, which includes the government’, and ‘Network China’, which includes those internationally networked companies on the coast and down south. Friedman sees an inevitable clash that will be lost by Command China.
This is a highly entrepreneurial sector that has developed sophisticated techniques to generate and participate in diverse, high-value flows of business knowledge. I call that Network China.
What is so important about knowledge flows? This, for me, is the key to understanding the Google story and why one might decide to short the Chinese Communist Party.
John Hagel, the noted business writer and management consultant argues in his recently released “Shift Index” that we’re in the midst of “The Big Shift.” We are shifting from a world where the key source of strategic advantage was in protecting and extracting value from a given set of knowledge stocks — the sum total of what we know at any point in time, which is now depreciating at an accelerating pace — into a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledgeflows, which are constantly being renewed.
“Finding ways to connect with people and institutions possessing new knowledge becomes increasingly important,” says Hagel. “Since there are far more smart people outside any one organization than inside.” And in today’s flat world, you can now access them all. Therefore, the more your company or country can connect with relevant and diverse sources to create new knowledge, the more it will thrive. And if you don’t, others will.
I would argue that Command China, in its efforts to suppress, curtail and channel knowledge flows into politically acceptable domains that will indefinitely sustain the control of the Communist Party — i.e., censoring Google — is increasingly at odds with Network China, which is thriving by participating in global knowledge flows. That is what the war over Google is really all about: It is a proxy and a symbol for whether the Chinese will be able to freely search and connect wherever their imaginations and creative impulses take them, which is critical for the future of Network China.
8. The Dark Bailout – The Joker is not happy with George Bush’s plan to bail out the banks…
9. Get up, stand up, standup for your heart – Get up from your computer now and jump around. Some Australian research out this month shows that people who sit around watching television (or on their computers) for hours on end are much more likely to die early of cardiovascular disease.
Australian researchers who tracked 8,800 people for an average of six years found that those who said they watched TV for more than four hours a day were 46% more likely to die of any cause and 80% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than people who reported spending less than two hours a day in front of the tube.
Time spent in front of televisions and computers and playing videogames has come under fire in studies in recent years for contributing to an epidemic of obesity in the U.S. and around the world. But typically the resulting public-health message urges children and adults to put down the Xbox controller and remote and get on a treadmill or a soccer field.
The Australian study offers a different take. “It’s not the sweaty type of exercise we’re losing,” says David Dunstan, a researcher at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, who led the study. “It’s the incidental moving around, walking around, standing up and utilizing muscles that [doesn't happen] when we’re plunked on a couch in front of a television.” Indeed, participants in the study reported getting between 30 and 45 minutes of exercise a day, on average.
The results are supported by an emerging field of research that shows how prolonged periods of inactivity can affect the body’s processing of fats and other substances that contribute to heart risk. And they suggest that people can help mitigate such risk simply by avoiding extended periods of sitting.
10. Totally irrelevant video – It’s ’snow joke’ (ho ho ho) for a bunch of British policeman reprimanded for using their riot shields as makeshift sleds while skiving off work as traffic police on snowy roads.
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January 22nd, 2010 at 11:02 am
No 2, a canadian friend 3 or 4 years ago said to me their experience of a free trade deal with US of A was a shocker. They were rorted. And to avoid one at all costs. Plenty of other countries wanting deals now anyway I say.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:02 am
Regarding #5. I think people should try to think about why China took this approach.
US has ~4x per capita emissions than China (and will take many years to catch up).
China has negligible historical emissions.
China probably refused to consent to inclusion of targets because they don’t want to be held to those same targets at some future date when they too become a ‘developed’ nation. They might believe this to be deeply unfair on the Chinese given the context of historical and per capita emissions disparities.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:GBR&q=co2+emissions#met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:GBR:CHN:ISL:IND:DEU:USA:CHE:SWE
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:11 am
The graph gets more interesting when you include Australia’s emissions…
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:GBR:CHN:IND:DEU:USA:AUS&tstart=-315619200000&tunit=Y&tlen=45
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:13 am
> American taxpayers are furious about the massive bailouts of public money given to banks. D’oh.
I think you mean “Duh”, not “D’oh”.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:18 am
# 5 Here is another view on the politics of the Copenhagen outcome
http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/413-benny-peiser-copenhagen-and-the-demise-of-green-utopia.html
Personally I think those supporters of AGW who are pointing fingers at China etc have got themselves to blame. The officials spent two years prior to Copenhagen trying to workout an accord and failed to deliver. Anyone who could read a newspaper could workout that nothing was happening at the talk fests leading up to Copenhagen. This shambles continued in the early days of the conference and so it was left to the heads of state to somehow “pull the rabbit out of the hat” in the last 24hrs. That’s why nothing was achieved — nothing to do with China , Obama or anyone else.
BTW if you talk to someone who knows something about China they will tell you that they have a policy of having 20% of all energy requirements coming from renewables by 2020 — the people I talk to say ” Beijing have said it , so it will happen irrespective of what the rest of the world thinks “. To me that is a better policy than some “plucked out of the air” emmisions targets that can be “manipulated” by corrupt carbon trading systems. systems ( ref. the system in Europe at present )
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:24 am
@Ross
The targets discussed are not “‘plucked out of the air’”. New Scientist has a nice info-graphic on candidate targets and what they mean…
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2733/27333301.jpg
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:36 am
Good point Carl, “D’oh” is the correct way to parody the legendary Homer Simpson “I’ve just done something stupid” noise, whereas “Duh” is a more appropriate way to express “How have you only just noticed something that everyone else has been shouting about for ages, you idiot? Doesn’t the White House have broadband?”
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Interesting:
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/environment/ipcc-apologies-for-glacier-melting-error-$1354803.htm
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:22 pm
And even more interesting when you add NZ
As the graph is as at 2005, has China already exceeded NZ per person?
The graph gets more interesting when you include Australia’s emissions…
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:GBR:CHN:IND:DEU:USA:AUS&tstart=-315619200000&tunit=Y&tlen=45
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:25 pm
@Bill: I think our kids future is f***ed, no one today will take the pain when tomorrow isnt their concern.
Blaming China is particularly silly, China is locked into a 10% per annum growth cycle to absorb its under-employed coming from agriculture….if it does not do so it will be one big riot…..The developed countries have more scope….but their voters wont accept any pain…greed now rules…as opposed to necessity….
So despite the over-whelming evidence for AGW, little will be done….pay now or pay later, the world is/has said pay later….Im thinking the wise man works on that assumption and plans accordingly. Seas will rise and ppl will be displaced, en mass, so we need to buy more warships and more guns….and be prepared to use them….sharks will have a happy time.
regards
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:35 pm
@NevillWC, for interest add Canada, Luxembourg and North Korea….
Interesting that most developed countries are close to NZ (6~10), there is a small group considerably higher, US, Canada and OZ…(15~19) a doubling!…..so why?
regards
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:42 pm
@Item 2
This is more of an issue of Corporate Personhood. I find it ironic that Corporations are gaining rights while actually people are loosing them by the hour (thanks drug war!!). Real People will soon have to incorporate themsleves into fake paper people just to be heard.
Unfortunately, they ruled correctly. The Supreme Court would first have to rule against corporate personhood (yeah right!) and then they could rule in favor of political finance reform.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Note the graph shows CO2 emissions only (which account for about 3/4 of all emissions).
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
@Bill: yes but its informative….so our emissions excluding cow farts are actually comparable with most in the developed world…OZ on the other hand seems out of whack per capita, twice ours.
I wonder why theirs is so bad.
regards
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:09 pm
@Troy: The split was interesting though 5:4….seems it was along political lines….
regards
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Manufacturing?
Electricity generation?=> How much Coal Powered electricity generation is there in NZ? How much in Aus?
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
@steven
they burn coal and lots of it
basically they haven’t invested in clean technology (one reason why Australia’s economy is doing ‘better’ than ours)
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:45 pm
@Gibber
oz = ~8% renewable
nz = ~66% renewable
china = ~15% renewable
see here for NZ electricity generation breakdown…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NZelectricity2009.png
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Message to John Key : Obama grew some kahunas , but sowed the seeds too late . He’s stuffed ; it will be a meagre harvest for him , in Yankee-Doodle Land . You still have 3 months of summer to get growing . If , come the chill winds of autumn , your kahunas are not flourishing , then in spring 2011 we’ll nip you in the bud . Get busy . Start growing your kahunas now !
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:02 pm
@Bill: I wouldnt say so (saracsm?)….our hydro is effectively free now….you have to dig coal out…Oz is doing better because china etc is buying raw materials and not because of power providing technology….that should be an advantage for us, and going for ward a big one…
@RT: Obama and Key’s mistakes are opposites….Obama didnt listen to the discontent from voters over the bailouts so they had to show him via the voting booth which they did with a vengeance, he could have balls the size of Mars makes no odds if he cant get it legislated. JK on the other hand does listen….possibly too well/much….JK will go the path of least resistance / lost votes which I think is almost worse than Obama. Just listening to Labour and the Unions its obvious that its self-protection all round…nobody wants any pain….pain is someone elses problem and its staying that way…with National its just a different group….so the swing voters who put a party in, have no where to go….vote Labour and Labour shafts you…..vote National and National shafts you, nice choice.
regards
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:05 pm
66%, Key is to reverse that downward trend on the hydro…get off coal but possibly more urgently gas…
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:09 pm
@ steven : Vote for NZ First . So much fun watching Winston ” shaft ” himself . Now that was entertainment ! 2008 will linger fondly , in the memory . Just say ” NO “ , Winnie !
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:19 pm
“About 300 property investors are in Inland Revenue’s sights for allegedly dodging taxes.”…herald….oh dear oh dear what av we here, property investors live fear. Let’s hope the IRD go after penalty taxes as well. So some bugger traded 80 properties and collected 8 million. 3 mill in tax not paid, plus the penalty, another 3 million and a bloody fine…say 2 million. That should do it.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:22 pm
@Troy
Go read Accelerando by Stross. There is a free version at [1].
[1] http://manybooks.net/titles/strosscother05accelerando-txt.html
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:27 pm
*Wally from left field*
Re #2. All the rights of a flesh and blood human with perfect rational choice = monster (Monsanto).
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
@Nicholas
Already did. I’m a huge Stross fan. He reminds me of Philip K Dick. Loved Glasshouse. Saturn’s Children was really mind-blowing, and Halted States is a user manual for the current financial crisis.
@Steven
The split is not just political its also an expression of who is ready to repeal corporate personhood and who is likely to keep the status quo. I think these cases of corporate personhood are the fundament legal paradigm of the next century, similar to the touchstone case of Dred Scott v. Sandford in the 19th Century. At some point, very soon, the rights of corporations vs. human rights will have to be addressed.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:45 pm
1. Well G-Sax certainly put enough cash into the Obama coffers….the reality is that banks make money out of leverage. Looking to reduce this is actually fantastic news for the real economy. It’s not so good news for bank shareholders but to be honest they are lucky to have any equity left after the 2008 meltdown.
Banks have a publicly issued license to create credit at the expense of the taxpayer. When the “public good” they provide outweighs its costs (as in the last 15 years) then they can expect the public to renegotiate the terms of that agreement.
Unfortunately the above statement is completely lost on most. Would any of our elected representatives understand that? If any of them do then call me collect
5. It’s time to move away from the nonsense that is per-capita emissions. Global warming (let’s not argue the stats here) is a commons problem and really no one knows with any certainty who will be worst affected (though we can guess). The only clear objective that could be met is to reduce actual fossil fuel extraction at source so as to meet an annual target for emissions. The market will adjust price and demand based on the supply signal.
Another approach is to “price” in the cost of combustion at source and let the “true cost” travel down the supply chain. The problem with this approach is that it’s not a quantity based framework and is therefore open to demand manipulation (ie increasing the money supply to account for higher costs).
China is absolutely right (from its own perspective) to play hardball here. After all they don’t consume all the products they make. Either restrict supply or price the product appropriately. All other solutions are just a bureaucratic nightmare which probably explains why so many governments promote them!!
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Hey Wally – you missed your calling – Lenin would have adored you!
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:49 pm
@raf Global warming is a sham – just watch the next few years to see how warm it gets… Just rememver that G-Sax, Al Gore and a few other “high priests” are positioned to make Billions out of the Carbon trading scheme… Its just sad that we have allowed ourselves to be conned into believing the crud that has been put forward.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:59 pm
@Martin. If you think we can consume all natural resources we lay our eyes upon, unabated, and not create unintended consequences then you have been conned. Energy is never lost in a closed system, it is shifted around/transformed. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction etc etc. The order to “go forth and multiply” and extract all we can from the earth was given when ‘mankind’ faced a very different set of rational choices. Or, who cares, im getting mine attitude has worked in the past.
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Martin
Suggest you go an buy a beachfront section, put you $ where your gob is
Neven
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:06 pm
But I agree a Carbon trading scheme will not solve emissions issues – only serve a few vested interests like you say. What are you going to do about it?
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Lest play “Game the Future”
Imagine there is a chart and on one axis is population and on the other is the use of natural recourses. We will divide the chart up into four quadrants. The four quadrants will be labeled as followed:
1) Sustainable Resources use; sustainable population
2) Sustainable Resource use; Unsustainable Population growth
3) Unsustainable Resource use; sustainable Population growth
4) Unsustainable Resource use; Unsustainable Population growth
Of those four scenarios there is only ONE that provides ultimate sustainability. Right now we are in quadrant #4 and the dirty little secret is that we have been there for the last few thousand years. The only tangible solution is to cull the human population form 7billion to less then a few hundred thousand. Unless you’re volunteering there is not much that can be done short of an ELE.
BTW even if we were to cull the population to “expectable levels” we will be back to this problem in less then 3000 years.
Stay Frosty!
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:28 pm
“Naturalists have described the Martin and the pine-weasel, or yellow-breasted martin, as animals of the same species”….weasal….yes that would figure! people weasal out of paying their fair tax.
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:51 pm
#1 Can the Swedes lead the way again ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/business/global/22levy.html?ref=business
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:52 pm
#4 2010 The year China goes pop. All that surplus money the Chinese have used for stimulous has been mostly frittered by corrupt local and regional officials and corporates on real estate, stock and commodity speculation. Their economic figures are worthless. They still have massive over capacity with their western consumers looking at double dip recessions. I expect the Red Army will be needed at some stage in the next 12 months to squash violent dissent and/or they go looking for a foreign bogeyman George Bush style. Because of China, 2010 will also be the year the GFC catches up with Australia and NZ.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
@stevek. I dont think you will be betting the farm on China going pop in 2010… but it is certainly worrying for NZ/AUS, over the medium term, as the air rushes out possibly at pace. Difficult to ‘hedge’ against this in the technical sense for small to medium players however.
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Wally is more like Stalin, which means ‘man of steel’
January 22nd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
It was always going to be a downward roller-coaster. A double-dip (if said enough) becomes ‘fact’, but the only way ahead is a continued bumping into an ever-lowering ceiling.
Troy – actually, things are better than you portray……we can probably support one billion.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:30 pm
” Man of steel ” is so cold and brutish ! Any notable from history , who is ” man of soft lollies ” , or any other confection . Searching for a Gummy-Bear hero . ………………….. Granville & Arkwright ( Open All Hours ) ………….ahhhhhhh ! Joy .
Anyone notice that tax hikes are being mooted , in OZ ? Even though they have $A trillion + in compulsory super funds . Getting that deja vu feeling about Labour politicians . Reckon their’s are shaping up to be as mind-numbingly meddlesome as ours ( 1999-2008 ) were . Pity the digger-cobber-mates going through something ‘like we endured .
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:37 pm
kevie + the goose[swan] kevie,s just published a kid,s book–anyone,s guess why
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:03 pm
I’m with you stevek. Wouldn’t read too much into those GDP figures as a good chunck of it is government stimulus. If there’s another Western recession on the horizon then we’ll really see how China is performing. Their current economic model requires robust Western consumption sooner or later.
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:50 am
It would be really hard for Goldman Sachs lobbyists to block Obama’s proposed banking reforms.
If you vote against it you give your electoral opponents easy ammunition for the midterm election. Being portrayed as the friend of the bankers, who are up their with pedophiles in the popularity stakes, won’t go down well with the electorate.
Also some republicans also want reform so that could prevent filibusters.
Finally other countries will almost certainly follow America’s lead. Britain looks like it will enact similar laws and the rest of Europe will probably do the same. This defeats the ‘regulate us and we’ll just move to London’ argument from banking lobbyists.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:04 pm
For a video clip that has absolutely nothing to do with ” interest.co.nz ” , except for the fact that we love to poke the borax & share a good laugh ; pop over to the RadioLive website , click Weekends with Graham Hill , and click on ” That Mitchell & Webb Look ” , Homeopathy A&E . …………. .If only medicine were so much fun . Cheers !
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:15 pm
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Homeopathic-AE/tabid/491/articleID/10864/cat/133/Default.aspx
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Barack Obama ah, Caroline Kennedy may not have been wrong to back him after all.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Weird ………. You’re a Bumper Sticker Boy too ? Must be a total eclipse of the gloom , or something .
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:49 pm
No Roger, just literally dont have more than 2-3 hours between work and sleep six days a week at present, but luckily I might have some time to expand on my day off tommorrow, have a read you might expand your knowledge, or it might expose what you already know but rue the day the general population does?
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
We are glad for you dude , that you are gainfully busy …….. Care not a thought for us , we’ll soldier on , pluckily , in the absence of your enlightening posts . …… . And I am reading , muchly so , for the benefit of the 4 y.o. & youse , I’m chugging thru Dr Seuss .
January 24th, 2010 at 12:40 am
Beastie
I think you are right. The significance of Obama’s timing cannot be underestimated. Bankers had been put on a long leash. That they didn’t humble and continued to treat tax payers with such contempt justifies the tough ‘yank’ on the end of the rope. Now Obama’s administration does not have to deal with the burden of proof. The large banks were given enough rope to hang themselves. They have damaged the general economy, were given the opportunity and funding to do the right thing, yet chose not to. The Republicans have no ammunition now. Obama is a world leader for directing change and god knows we need one.
Watching interviews with London’s so called ‘masters of the universe’ on Channel 4 last night, one gets the feeling that these guys are, finally, terrified. They are in ’shock and awe’ at the audacity of Obama to call their bluff. It’s the beginning of the end for their world and they know it. Upping sticks to Geneva and Hong Kong would mean a self imposed rehab of ‘lifestyle’ that few will successfully survive. The risks are coming home to roost.
Obama has placed huge pressure on the Labour government here. We have an election very soon and the tax payers are very, very angry indeed. Finally, there is some real leverage for change.
January 24th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Dr Suess aye Rog, thats a good analogy of the madness of allowing the privately owned and run central banking system to continue to hold the supposedly freeworld in debt slavery.
I have to attend to work around the farmlet, that I am paying the bank 3 times true value for due to compounding interest, before having a reasonable go at it this afternoon.
The battle between private banking for private profit or public banking in the wider public interest is really heating up in the US and Britain. Below is some of the latest from some of the very best sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2010-01-21-obama-backs-bank-limits_N.htm
But merely reintroducing the checks and balances that prevent private investment banks turning markets into insider trading pyramid scams that prey upon the pooled savings of the common people will all come to nothing if the issuance of the credit money base is not returned to the public interest and then enters circulation without interest attached, as stated by
Sir Josiah Stamp Quote
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them,but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again.
However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in.
But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery,
let them continue to create deposits.”
by: Sir Josiah Stamp
(1880-1941) President of the Bank of England in the 1920’s, the second richest man in Britain
Source: Speaking at the Commencement Address of the University of Texas in 1927
An insight into the skullduggery used by the private bankers and the needed alternatives are outlined well here in Ellen Brown’s latest(the link re National Credit has great NZ content):
http://www.truthout.org/funding-public-health-care-with-a-publicly-owned-bank-how-canada-did-it56313
The battle between the states of US that are pushing for public banking as opposed to federal private banking is outlined in this great new resource:
http://publicbanking.wordpress.com/
and the private bankers now mobilising into full battle mode is outlined here:
http://www.truthout.org/supreme-court-decision-radically-overhauls-campaign-finance-laws-favor-corporations56261
January 24th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Iain : My computer drew a blank on the first link , and had a spasm – then shut down – on the second . Probably this Warehouse DELL’s fault .
Hey , you’ll be happy that “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke and “Tiny” Tim Geithner appear to be on the Obama outer ? Paul Volcker is finally being listened to . But the QE path of dollar debasement will continue regardless . Too late to stop the train from wrecking , now .
As for reading material , I am getting alotta value out of James Grant’s ( Interest Rate Observer ) books , as they’re so big , they make great missiles for chucking at the neighbour’s chickens ….. ….. Little feckers are after me Bramley’s apples !
January 25th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
“For a decade and a half, the banks have been quietly colonising the upper reaches of British politics and administration. There is a revolving door between the UK government and the financial sector through which a whole raft of cabinet ministers and senior civil servants have followed the money. In America, the overlap is even more conspicuous because of party donations. Barack Obama’s biggest campaign donation came from Goldman Sachs – aka “Golden Sacks” – the biggest investment beast on Wall St.. Yet was Goldmans that prompted Obama to act last week after it announced profits of $45bn for 2009 – the very year it was saved by the taxpayers – and said that it was handing out $16bn to Goldman employees in salaries and bonuses. The US President could simply could not let this continue.”
What he intends is a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power from Wall St back to Main St.. He plans to stop banks from playing the markets with depositor’s funds, bar them from speculative activity like hedge funds and private equity, and to concentrate on old fashioned banking: mortgages and business loans. If Obama fails, the consequence will be dire. The banking kleptocracy, which has managed to plunder taxpayers’ money on an epic scale on both sides of the Atlantic, will become even more entrenched, even more powerful. If Obama fails, the ground will have been laid for the next great financial crash, of even greater dimensions than the crash of 2008. Already, the banks, gorged on public money, have been quietly reflating the bubble economy. Speculative cash is pouring back into property, shares and commodities.
http://iainmacwhirter2.blogspot.com/2010/01/obama-and-banksoh-yes-he-can.html
January 25th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
The below article brilliantly describes what the freeworld is up against at the hands of international incorporated bankers and is very relevant to recent story of how easy it is for foreigners to set up shelf companies in NZ then sell or lease them out to dubious entities:
” The madness of the shadow banking system became apparent over a year ago when Northern Rock was nationalised, but regulators ignored the implications. The Treasury minister Yvette Cooper discovered to her dismay that Northern Rock didn’t own half of its own mortgages: £50bn had been hived off to a Jersey-based company, Granite, registered as a charity benefiting Down’s syndrome children in the north-east of England. Needless to say, the charity didn’t get any cash – this was a special-purpose vehicle that allowed the Rock to trade in complex securities without having to meet the stringent capitalisation requirements of a normal bank.
But it wasn’t just the Rock. Most banks and other financial institutions did exactly the same, setting up “orphan companies”, often under charitable trusts, that did not appear on their published balance sheets. This is one reason why such apparently well-capitalised and solvent institutions as Royal Bank of Scotland collapsed so suddenly. Their true liabilities had been hidden for years in the shadow system while they made huge profits from lending…………….There is a huge deleveraging under way, which will bring trillions in losses across the world banking system. The hedge-fund industry is disappearing before our eyes as worried investors pull their money from these vehicles that pro mised never to lose. It is expected that the industry will halve in value to roughly $1trn, but its leveraged liabilities will be much larger than that.
If, as expected, British property slumps by 35 per cent, that will mean another £1trn or so of value removed from the financial system, further undermining the value of all those mortgage-backed bonds in the SIVs. Even after the post-bailout rally, the UK stock market has lost a trillion or so this year. Who pays? Well, pension funds will absorb many of the losses. They are estimated to have lost £150bn so far, but the true figure will be much higher. The 2.5 million homeowners who will be in negative equity if the 35 per cent fall in house prices takes place will also be paying debts for many years. Sovereign wealth funds that invested in British banks and equities will find themselves out of pocket.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2008/10/financial-system-british
“The Russian-made aircraft was managed by Air West, a Georgia-registered carrier, hired to transport the cargo by SP Trading, according to Air West director Nodar Kakabadze and documents, the Wall Street Journal reported.
SP Trading is registered with an Auckland address, according to the Companies Office. Its sole shareholder is Vanuatu-based GT Group Ltd, in Queen Street.
SP Trading doesn’t have a directory listing and a call to a number listed for GT Group went straight to a fax machine. GT Group appears to be a Vanuatu-based company listed on its website as “providing an extensive range of offshore company services for privacy, legal tax avoidance, asset protection, financial independence and freedom”.
http://www.guide2.co.nz/politics/news/nz-officials-probe-local-links-to-arms-trade/11/13328
“Stella Port-Louis, director of hundreds of New Zealand companies, has clear views about herself.
“Cool, honest, down to earth and friendly but that doesn’t mean that I do not get upset!”
Ms Port-Louis, who turns 31 on January 28, lives in Victoria in the Seychelles, an Indian Ocean tax haven.
The Seychelles beauty heads hundreds of shell companies run out of an Auckland office, where another company is embroiled in an international arms-smuggling controversy with links to New Zealand.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/national-news/3216820/Beauty-and-lord-keep-shady-company
Nah, no way, the world hasn’t devolved into a deregulated wild west, has it?