90 seconds at 9 am: Eurostoxx down and US stocks flat after German business confidence slumps unexpectedly; German calls grow for Spanish bailout; Chinese confidence weak

Like any cartel, the banking cartel always acts in the interests of its cartel members, not its customers. Dont understand why people would think it would ever be any different?

another cracker, thanks Andrewj

Thanks Andrewj. Charles Hugh Smith is on to it. Liked the intro to his new book.

http://www.oftwominds.com/RRL-intro.html

"Those benefitting from our sociopathological, neofeudal Status Quo (as well as those who have been persuaded that their participation benefits them) will see no need for revolution. Indeed, they will view any transformation as a threat to their personal share of the Status Quo perquisites. But fundamental transformation is no longer a choice, whether you believe the Status Quo serves your self-interest or not. The unsustainable will crumble and another arrangement will take its place.

We cannot know when the Central State and financial system will destabilize, we only know they will destabilize. We cannot know which of the State’s fast-rising debts and obligations will be renounced or written down; we only know the debts and obligations will be renounced in one fashion or another....

The key social control myth is that the system serves your self-interest. If you believe this, then you will defend an oppressive, exploitive, parasitical Status Quo in the misplaced belief it serves your personal interests....

Another key social control myth is that individuals are powerless in the vast systems that dominate our society and economy. This is a very useful myth to the Status Quo, as it leads individuals to surrender their autonomy and liberty without coercion.

In the myth of top-down revolution, nothing can possibly change until the leadership has been replaced and vast, impersonal systems far beyond our individual influence have been reworked at the top of the pyramid.

In terms of directly influencing the centralized political and financial structures that dominate our lives, we are debt-serfs gazing upon the aristocracy’s distant, inaccessible castle. But our remoteness from concentrations of wealth and power does not render us powerless.

The truth is that revolution and liberation are within our reach; when we liberate our minds from pathological illusions of self-interest, we have already achieved the first key step of liberation. We can do so without the permission of the aristocracy or the centralized State they control.

The model of positive change I propose here is a synthesis of both internal and external liberation. In my view, political liberation is impossible if the mind and spirit are shackled by pathological conceptions of self-interest, and spiritual liberation is limited by the oppression and predation of corrupting, exploitive political-financial systems."

I get to see any changes shortly, as I think it rolls over this month, but I had an alternative quote back in Feb that indicated 50%+....and that was just the EQ component....so that bit buts be 3 or 4 times bigger...

no, no, then you go to the future, rob your children twice, once to keep going and the second time to payback what you robbed off yourself today.  There wont be a third time as you will be dead and buried. 

Just to make sure you discount the theft claiming your children will be much better off so able to pay it back easily, so you dont care.

You just keep doing it for 30 years....simple, welcome to voodoo economics 101.

regards

Learn to Social - currency control and money printing is what is termed the 4th form of trade protectionism. According to this link it is not commonly taught in economics.

http://useconomy.about.com/od/glossary/g/Trade-Protectionism.htm

I think it was Andrewj who posted links to Hypertiger.

Double whammy is what I have been saying for a while. The natural end of the cycle for a fiat currency (it is actually the interest component that really kills it) means the debts accrued can't and won't be repaid. Then the resource limits being hit at the same time. Of course my reasoning is that a fiat currency, or a disconnect of money from real assets, was a logical step in the face of resource limits. Perfectly predictable really and the same thinking that created it will likely continue, meaning pushing it to collapse rather than addressing the underlying issues.

What happens with Okun's law when output is actually falling, but GDP continues to rise solely based on the price component?

Jeff Rubin....one worth reading.

"The countries guzzling the most oil are taking the biggest hits to potential economic growth. That’s sobering news for the U.S."

That should also be sobering for NZ and OZ which I beleieve are similar.

"These policies (low interest rates, printing) cannot be long-term substitutes for cheap oil because an economy can’t grow if it can no longer afford to burn the fuel on which it runs. The end of growth means governments will need to radically change how economies are managed"

Whats interesting is the comment,

"Worse, when oil prices go up, so does inflation. And when inflation goes up, central banks respond by raising interest rates to keep prices in check. From 2004 to 2006, U.S. energy inflation ran at 35 percent, according to the Consumer Price Index. In turn, overall inflation, as measured by the CPI, accelerated from 1 percent to almost 6 percent. What happened next was a fivefold bump in interest rates that devastated the massively leveraged U.S. housing market. Higher rates popped the speculative housing bubble, which brought down the global economy."

So ppl here asking for our rates to go up becaus eits not fair should take heed.

regards

Yes indeed...Steven L ...The Germans for all their clever posturing  while grinding out the profits of exporting  to the rest of Europe, now find themselves in one of those ugly co-dependant relationships....wise council would say it's unhealthy, they are becoming more miserable while entrenched.....and yet , there they are, if they leave the relationship, they lose so much of the investment, if they stay they are committed to years of nurchering their sick ,spend happy partners back to health.   

 They lack the sheer size of China to internalise some of the problem.....

Ah, when will it ever end ...eh, ten years from now they might wished they'd cut their losses and took on a little forced austerity (being the byproduct of quitting) themselves. 

"...or they take their foot off the throats of the rest of Europe; or they will lose in a big way, along with everyone else. ...." 

Now spot the 1 letter difference.

....or they take their foot off the throats of the rest of Europe; or they will lose in a big war, along with everyone else.....

 Deja vu all over again.

KH, undoubtedly many borrowers have been far less than prudent. Any loan though has two parties; a willing lender, and a willing borrower. Because the surplus countries were(and remain) determined to have surpluses build on surpluses, they frankly threw money at anything. Sub prime in the US would not have happened if there were not very indiscriminating European banks looking for anywhere to park their surplus funds. So in that case I don't have that much sympathy for them. The Greeks have also been the architects of their own misfortune, but the Germans among others knew they cooked the books years earlier.

A more sinister effect of these surpluses is that they become self perpetuating through exchange rate management; and this has been one of NZ's biggest problems.

The surplus countries wish to keep having surpluses, so they invest in deficit countries (like NZ), forcing their own currencies down, and ours up. This means the relative competitiveness continues to favour them; except that one day, either the money they have loaned to the deficit countries becomes unpayable at even really low interest rates; and/or there are no more assets in the deficit countries that realistically can be bought. (The current crisis is largely because the world is pretty much at that point). In the meantime any transferable productive capability is transferred to the surplus countries, such that the deficit countries are only left holding (but not owning) what cannot be transferred- farms, mines, tourism, property generally.

So the deficit countries in the end have to take a hit to their consumption of foreign goods.  Either the surplus countries lift theirs, or world consumption has to tank. There is no alternative. The surplus countries are not yet really showing any signs of culturally lifting their consumption. The Germans are not even trying; in fact they are tightening their belts.

May seem counter intuitive; but am confident the above stands scrutiny.

Challenge it by all means.

Think we need to seperate the average German and Greek from their financial elites and banks. The average German has seen little to no benefit from the big surpluses apart from keeping their job. Wages have been kept suppressed as part of a social compact between business and unions. The profits have gone to the shareholders and banks. But who will bear the brunt of either bailing out their own banks or continueing to subsidise their European neighbours? The average taxpayer.

In Greece, yes the average Greek was encouraged to borrow and spend, just like the average Kiwi. You can argue they weren't forced to but given all the pressure to consume and the speculative get rich mentality that now prevails everywhere, that's expecting an awful lot of people. Who really got wealthy in Greece? The same people as in Germany. The banks and the financial/political elites. Who will bear the brunt of paying for the austerity measures and repaying the money lent to them recklessly by German banks and their own financial elite(who have taken their profits and fled) The average taxpayer.

German and Greek elites 2, German and Greek citizens 0