Here are my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10 to 9 pm, brought to you in association with New Zealand Mint for your reading pleasure.
I welcome your additions and comments below, or please send suggestions for Monday's Top 10 at 10 via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz.
I'll pop any surplus suggestions I get into the comment stream.
1. It was Sean FitzPatrick's fault - Not the All Black, but the Irish banker.
This BusinessWeek piece on Bloomberg gives a lot of juicy detail on the Irish boom and bust, including how the driving force behind Anglo Irish Bank helped blow up the economy with reckless lending to property developers.
Now where have we heard this story before....and how greatful they were for the government's guarantee in Sept/Oct 2008...
The Irish situation is a complete mess.
Europe will be very lucky to get out of it with the euro intact and without riots, or worse.
The other beast born in the late 1980s was Sean FitzPatrick’s Anglo Irish, which, being a smaller bank amid old standbys like Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc, needed to distinguish itself. Anglo Irish began to aggressively offer loans for property development.
“We’d have a lovely breakfast at 7 in the morning at the Shelbourne, and I’d say to my lender, ‘I need some money,’ and he’d give me 10 million quid,” Simon recalls. “I could have gamed the whole system if I wanted. There was no amount of money I wouldn’t have been lent.”
On Sept. 29, 2008, with shares of financial companies plummeting, the government declared it would guarantee the debts of the banks. Regulators, who had done little for the past decade, didn’t realize the extent of those debts, and bankers didn’t help illuminate the scale of the crisis.
A few days after the guarantee, FitzPatrick said during a radio interview that everything was fine: “The cause of our problems was global, so I can’t say sorry with any degree of sincerity and decency, but I do say thank you,” he said.
Now the British government is offering to help bail them out.
Yikes.
When are Irish and British and German taxpayers/voters going to revolt at using their money to bail out all these banks (who are still paying out big bonuses) ? HT Darryl via email.
George Osborne has pledged to help Ireland after new figures showed British banks have a £140 billion exposure to the beleaguered country. The Chancellor attended crisis talks in Brussels to discuss the growing debt crisis in Ireland with the country under intense international pressure to accept an international bailout.
The new figures - from the Bank for International Settlements - disclose that Britain faces the biggest potential losses from a meltdown in the Irish economy. This country’s banks have lent more than those from any other country to the Irish government, consumers and businesses.
3. This is genuinely sad - India's microfinance industry looks to be in crisis and on the verge of collapse, the New York Times reports. HT Troy via email.
India’s rapidly growing private microcredit industry faces imminent collapse as almost all borrowers in one of India’s largest states have stopped repaying their loans, egged on by politicians who accuse the industry of earning outsize profits on the backs of the poor.
The crisis has been building for weeks, but has now reached a critical stage. Indian banks, which put up about 80 percent of the money that the companies lent to poor consumers, are increasingly worried that after surviving the global financial crisis mostly unscathed, they could now face serious losses. Indian banks have about $4 billion tied up in the industry, banking officials say.
The region’s crisis is likely to reverberate around the globe. Initially the work of nonprofit groups, the tiny loans to the poor known as microcredit once seemed a promising path out of poverty for millions. In recent years, foundations, venture capitalists and the World Bank have used India as a petri dish for similar for-profit “social enterprises” that seek to make money while filling a social need. Like-minded industries have sprung up in Africa, Latin America and other parts of Asia. But microfinance in pursuit of profits has led some microcredit companies around the world to extend loans to poor villagers at exorbitant interest rates and without enough regard for their ability to repay. Some companies have more than doubled their revenues annually.
Now some Indian officials fear that microfinance could become India’s version of the United States’ subprime mortgage debacle, in which the seemingly noble idea of extending home ownership to low-income households threatened to collapse the global banking system because of a reckless, grow-at-any-cost strategy.
4. Bubble generation - Economist Umair Haque has written an excellent piece here on the decline of America. Today's must-read in my view. HT Rob via email. I need to buy Haque's book.
It's the oft-unspoken thought on many lips: America's in decline. The glory days are over, the train's left the station. So: is this a great decline? Unfortunately--probably. And I'd suggest that when you take a hard, serious look into the economy--when you voyage past it's superficial, largely irrelevant position in terms of budgets, "gross product", or "unemployment"--that great decline is deeper and darker than pundits, beancounters, and politicians think, want to admit, or even suspect.
The great crisis is a story of structural decline: a decline that's hardwired into the patterns amongst this great machine's many parts. They've settled, over the last three decades and more, into fundamentally bad, toxic equilibria--where speculation precedes investment, model precedes reality, management and financial jargon is a substitute for real insight, cheap talk substitutes for hard work, and indulgence has replaced inspiration.
5. 'Fight the man' - US Congressional staffer Matt Stoller writes persuasively at Naked Capitalism about how Americans are becoming 'debtcroppers', similar in many ways to the 'sharecroppers of the South who found themselves as slaves to their creditors, who became known collectively as 'The Man'. HT Troy via email.
The tone of political commentary in the US is starting to change, even close to the heart of the political elite.
It's taking on a more urgent and divisive feel. As it should.
Young people and what only cynics might call ‘homeowners’ have no choice but to jump on the treadmill of debt, as debtcroppers. The goal is not to have them pay off their debts, but to owe forever. Whatever a debtcropper owes, a wealthy creditor owns.
And as a bonus, the heavier the debt burden of American citizenry, the less able we are able to organize and claim our democratic rights as citizens. Debtcroppers don’t start companies and innovate, they don’t take chances, and they don’t claim their political rights. Unclogging our constipated economy is not a complex problem — we must simply wipe out the bad debt that cannot be paid back. The complexity of the problem lies in the politics.
Debtcroppers have no power, except to stop paying their debts. The constituents I worked with on a fraudulent foreclosure eventually did just that. She and her husband, unshackled by panic, began rebuilding their lives, throwing away their indentured servitude to the bank that abused them. They found their dignity, and used the court system to claim their rights as citizens. They fought the man, successfully, and wiped out their debt.
And that is a very scary threat to the creditor class, perhaps the only thing they are really scared of.
6. Is this the trigger for the long awaited bond rout ? - BusinessInsider reports Former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin as saying he reckons a US Congressional vote on the US budget deficit due early next year could be the trigger for a collapse in the US bond market and a sharp jump in interest rates globally. HT Gertraud.
Warning of the risk of an "implosion" in the bond market, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin says the soaring federal budget deficit and the Fed's quantitative easing are putting the U.S. in "terribly dangerous territory."
Speaking at an event at The Pierre Hotel in New York City honoring Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Rubin joined the growing number of current and former officials (foreign and domestic) to criticize QE2. The Fed's plan to buy $600 billion of Treasuries "has a lot of risk," he said, calling the international reaction "horrendous."
Rubin, who issued a similar warning about the bond market at The FT's "Future of Finance" conference in October, said Congress' vote on raising the deficit ceiling next spring could be the "trigger" for a rout in the Treasury market. Several Republican and Tea Party candidates vowed to not increase the government's debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to sharp cuts in spending that may not be politically tenable.
A Congressional standoff on the debt ceiling could spook international investors, Rubin said, alluding to a market event similar to the Dow's 778-point plunge on Sept. 29, 2008, when the House initially voted no on TARP.
7. Mark to make believe - Jonathan Weill at Bloomberg details how US banks are continuing to extend and pretend by playing silly buggers with their loan valuations.
Silly.
Buggers.
That bugger silly taxpayers.
Just when it looked like U.S. banks were starting to reveal the true values of their loans, it turns out there’s an accounting loophole they can exploit to keep bad news buried. Ever since new rules took effect last year, lenders have been required to disclose the “fair value” of their loans each quarter. The results have been something of a mystery, though. Some banks show large disparities between these numbers and the loan values on their balance sheets. Others don’t.
One big reason: Thanks to the loophole, they don’t all have to follow the same definition of fair value. My guess is most investors don’t know this. Often lenders’ disclosures don’t clearly explain which approach they’re using, or that companies have a choice.
And of course there's a song to go with it.
8. Here's why the Irish bailout won't work - Wall St Journal's Alen Mattich explains here why it won't work. He says Irish and German voters won't stand for it in the end. Here's hoping.
HT Daryl via email.
Mish has his thoughts here too.
Market participants are giddy today on the great news that Ireland will go deeper in debt in a foolish attempt to bail out the German and UK bondholders who were in turn foolish enough to lend ridiculous amounts of money to Irish banks in various real estate schemes.
The Irish government was of course foolish enough to guarantee all of this foolishness which means that Irish citizens many of whom were sucked into buying property at foolish prices are now on the hook to bail out the bondholders, rubbing salt into the wounds of Irish taxpayers, not all of whom were foolish enough to freely participate in the general foolishness.
9. 'Get ready for it' - BBC reports a consortium of British businesses are warning the government to prepare for a rise in oil prices because of peak oil. HT Gertraud.
The group says a new "peak oil threat" is likely to be felt in the UK within the next five years. Peak oil is the point when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters a terminal decline.
The group, the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES) has produced a briefing update called Peak Oil: the implications of the Gulf of Mexico spill. It warns that in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, tightened regulation of deep water drilling could see oil prices rise. 'Horrible shocks' Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group is among the members of the industry taskforce, said the disaster in the Gulf had increased the chances of an "oil crunch" in the coming decade.
He said: "The time to take out our insurance policies against such an outcome is now. We must do this to avoid the horrible shocks to the UK economy which will be mirrored in many other parts of the world."
10. Totally compelling video - Americans are starting to get angry and up close and personal with the bankers that are taking their homes off them. In this video a few challenge a Chase bank executive at some public hearings. HT Hugh via email.
11. Totally brilliant video - This is a repeat of a video from John Clarke and Brian Dawe I've used before, but it has new meaning in the wake of the Irish crisis.
91 Comments
This is fun. A survey shows TV news sentiment is a better pre-indicator of consumer spending than consumer confidence surveys.
The average American watches over five hours of television per day. We test whether sentiment in TV news shows influences the ordinary consumer in the US, and whether the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment is better at explaining changes in private consumption than TV news sentiment. TV news sentiment, we find, can better explain the consumption behavior of US households, especially when combined with personal income and savings.
Here's the paper http://kofportal.kof.ethz.ch/publications/download/1816/wp_268.pdf
And here's what Australia's mining boom looks like
PLANNED mining and energy investment has soared to a record $132.9 billion.
The value of projects under development hit the new high last month, a 21 per cent increase since April, according to figures from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/resources-go-boom-boom-20101118-17zc5.html
cheers
Bernard
They seem to have perked up , since the ditching of the worst of the ruddy super-mining-profits-tax . Quite amazing really , how quickly a thriving industry can crumple , under a sudden bout of governmental stupidity . And heartening for us capitalists , to see the resilience of industry , once government skulks away , with it's tail between it's legs !
Detail on the European Sovereign Bailout, which is really a bank bailout in disguise.
Great table on the various banks' exposure
http://av.r.ftdata.co.uk/files/2010/11/exposuretablebig.jpg
And Alphaville. HT Felix Salmon
I went through that lot , the Top 10 @ 10 ; how can you say " for your reading pleasure " ? Geeeeez , you are a sick bastard , Hickey ! ................ Although the Dilbert cartoon did ring echoes of my stouches with my former boss , at Fairfax . From your experience with Fairfax , d'ya think that Dilbert has an inside link , a CCTV in the CEO's office , or something ?
Aha..i've finally figured it out !
Darth Hickey and the Gummy Bear used to work together @ Fairfax until they both " saw the light"
In Gummy's case it was mangoes, nymphets and rum in the Philipines and in Bernard's case ...well, i'm not sure what happened when Darth Hickey saw the light... but he owns this site and Gummy still raves at him, so probably very little has changed except the locations?
FYI Eric Cantona is calling for a bloodless revolution against Europe's banks. Really. Remember December 7 is bank revolt day in Europe.
"We don't pick up weapons to kill people, to start the revolution... the revolution is really easy to do nowadays. What is the system? The system revolves around the banks. It's based on the power of the banks... so it must be destroyed starting with the banks. This means that the 3 million people with their placards on the street... they go to the bank, withdraw their money from the banks and these ones collapse. 10 million people and the banks collapse and there is not real threat, a real revolution. We must go to the bank. In this case there would be a real revolution. It's not complicated. You simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money. If there are enough people withdrawing their money, the system collapses. No weapon, no blood, or anything like that."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uop5R7E314&feature=player_embedded
cheers
Bernard
Cracking piece here from Patrick Chovanec on how Chinese couples are getting around the rule about married couples not owning second investment properties. They get 'divorced'. Tis true. HT Neville via email.
http://chovanec.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/sex-and-the-city-housing-marke…
Some couples merely buy fake divorce papers, without actually going through with it. But actual, legal divorces in China are up nearly 10% this year, and nobody can say just how many are motivated by real estate fever. But the motivations of those who are willing to at least contemplate such a drastic move are extremely telling:
An informal survey conducted by the Shanghai Financial News in May suggested that as many as 40 per cent of respondents would consider a tactical divorce if the savings were high enough. One reason is that although the regulations were put in place to curb property speculation, there is a sceptical view of the strategy’s effect. “I think the reason couples choose to divorce in order to buy property is that they don’t expect housing prices to go down in the short term. They don’t believe the government measures will have an effect on housing prices,” [Professor] Cao said.
On Ireland and the EMU
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/814455…
drjonathanwilson 4 hours ago Recommended by7 people Ambrose
You know that debt restructuring raises interest rates and will exacerbate the solvency problem.
Why then do you make debt restructuring sound like a solution?
It patently is not.
I would have thought that you would say that it is EMU and the Euro itself that needs "restructuring".
How much more evidence do you need before you say it?
Dissembling by taking about debt restructuring is Jeremy Warner's approach - I thought that you were made of sterner stuff.
I do wonder which of the Telegraph’s financial columnists will be the first to break rank and actually tell it exactly as it is.
On a consolidated basis EMU is insolvent and Germany has neither the political or economic staying power to continue to pretend otherwise.
Jonathan Oh for the good old days http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGFW9jCFml4
Great video with Eric Cantona. Quite cool. But once people withdraw their money - what do they do with it? Under the mattress? Also, if their is a rush on banks won't the Govt just restrict withdrawals until the panic subsides?
It's kind of like the protests in Apartheid South Africa, where the blacks just stopped buying the goods and services from the regime. Apparently that was their most effective form of protest.
I guess the problem with Cantona's idea is that most people wouldn't be interested. Perhaps far left extremists only.
So you ready to sign up yet..?.....I can't do it with just Walter...besides he's a pasifist ....and GBH is like completely AWOL...getting a dry tan while building ablution blocks which may or may not contain illicit substances.
So that leaves me...and ...ah...lemme see now....lassie's gone.....er well, I get right on a recruitment drive...there must be a lot of dissatisfied...disaffected ......disenfranchised....normo's out there ready to engage.....in a bit of open heart surgery.
for such was the price....then so is the payment.
Zerohedge has an article from SocGen (most of which is I don't understand) but it does contain one chart 1.11 which shows a leverage clock that has NZ not in a bubble and policy working.
Is the outsiders view valid or does Wolly know better?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/socgen-presents-its-vision-future-several-pretty-charts
That was not easy to open Neville....found it though....studying it now...." monetary policy working. Fiscal policy focused on deficit reduction".....have torn page from screen to use in dunny!
You must be joking neville...good laugh though....Noddyland's monetary policy is working!...that'd be bollard holding the ocr low for longer and still the economy is shrinking in real terms when you allow for the managed debasement of the currency!.........Let's try the other side of the toilet tissue..."Fiscal policy focused on deficit reduction"....doh....oh I see, they mean the focus is on reducing the deficit by borrowing a billion a month while revenue drops a billion a quarter and the deficit widens.....oh right that makes sense.
Sure is some model from socgen or whomever....now I must be off for a dump...hope this stuff is soft!
The poor old American economy is looking more and more maligned by the month. Not to go with the standard line, but the American dream had pushed wage expectations through the roof and the capitalist reaction has meant the middle class has subsequently been destroyed through globalisation and outsourcing (ie. China). Soon they'll realise the only solutions are protectionism and a realignment downwards of wage expectations and standard of living. If not it looks like the controlling elite will devalue the Dollar into oblivion.
On the far side of the curve lets hope in time they're not tempted to use the one actual real output the good old US of A hasn't outsourced to the chinese.... eg. Weapons and Defence hardware, to fix their problems in the next few years.
Ireland's Fianna Fail leaders must rue the day they ever allowed Patrick Honohan to take charge of the Irish central bank.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8144006/Patrick-Honohan-Irelands-prophet-and-saviour.htmlTamgential to the peak oil discussion, I had a thought about UK oil expertise. Are they now the world leader in under sea oil exploration but without quite realising it?
One snippet I picked up while the Gulf oil spill was going on: the spill was in the Gulf, not the North Sea. I have never seen such a tranquil sea! Totally different to the violent North Sea.
What the Brits were of course unable to say out loud was it had happened in the Gulf rather than the North Sea for one very important reason - they have to employ the natives. The natives being US citizens who may or may not have been fat, lazy and stupid as sometimes charicatured but were clearly and demonstrably incompetent.
Note the brevity and precision of the BP CEOs response to questions in Congress - we will have to wait for the engineer's report. Contrast this with the endless verbiage and spin the US Congress expected from him.
Also note the precision and understanding of Mervyn King about the structural issues in the global banking system. I started to take notice when George Soros said that Mervyn King actually did understand the real issues here.
Retaining their currency has turned out to mean maintaining their sovereignty.
The UK clearly is not the basket case everyone, including the Brits, thinks it is.
Sweet-as piece in the Telegraph on money printing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/8147849/Jailed-c…
Beautiful:)
He explained that long custodial terms were appropriate because the offences undermined confidence in the economic system and could have “caused a lot of people to lose their money” (forged £20 notes were trading for just £2).
The problem with counterfeit paper is that it’s not backed by gold or any other store of value. Whereas proper money, printed by the Bank of England, is, of course, er… also not backed by gold or any other store of value.
A corker Andyh.
." an intriguing case at Leeds Crown Court last week. It ended with four men being jailed for a remarkable counterfeiting operation. The gang’s plan was to print more than £5 million and flood the country with fake currency. Sentencing them, the judge acknowledged that their sophisticated scheme had produced high-quality notes on a commercial scale. He explained that long custodial terms were appropriate because the offences undermined confidence in the economic system and could have “caused a lot of people to lose their money” (forged £20 notes were trading for just £2)."
Like who in their right mind has any confidence in the economic system?.......funniest crap yet.
Iain
that is an interesting report but there are a couple of issues I can see.
Firstly power is addictive and those who have it will never give it up willingly. Money = Power.
Secondly the question I have is in regard to the switch from fiat to fractional reserve. The report mentions that the shift to fractional reserve banking could be done in twelve months but doesn't really outline how this would be done(although I did skim the report). I am assuming they are regarding the switch happening before a collapse of the current system, but to me it seems likely that we will fall into a hole first. Perhaps it could be Eric Cantona style.
Once in the hole how do you then go about making an equitable shift to the fractional reserve system, and what about the people that have been burnt along the way, such as Hanover investors or those with life savings in the CBA when it collapses next year.
How do you assign a value to gold or silver for those that have accumulated it for just such an occurrence.
Just using CBA as an easily recognisable example, not necessarily specific to them. Although shorting them might be a good idea as I believe they are pretty vulnerable when you look at Hugh's figures and then realise how fiat currency works.
Not a gloomster anyway GBH, and I have put my money where my mouth is with regard to a double dip. I see it as an opportunity and can't wait for someone to finally lose the game of musical chairs that is being playing with debt on an international scale.
But I don't presume to know that much about economics it all and am always reading those on here more learned than myself, and will keep reading. But I don't just read and accept, I try to cross check.
Where I was on the money was to pick the crash as far back as 2004, but unfortunately I wasn't in a situation then to position myself for it.
I always wonder how many people have pulled out an encyclopedia on economic theory and looked for the causes of depressions.
But perhaps I am guilty of looking to confirm my own theories:)
Sir Ralph will be well pleased that you're not singling out his fine establishment per se . And yet , as a non-gloomster , you're still picking a double-dip recession ? Again , why be so sure ?
Unlike Bernard's massaging of the figures , I still use the two consequetive quarters of negative GDP , to signal a recession . On Radio National , he even claimed that the USA is in a depression . The current GDP growth is weak , but it is growth nevertheless .
The daily " Top 10 @ 10 " is the cause of depressions .
Come out of the closet buddy , we're all here for you ........... Admission of being a
Hicksterical gloomster is the first step onto the path of recovery ............You are not alone ............. Many have succumbed to the depressive siren dirge of the " Top 10 @ 10 " ............ You are amongst friends and fellow sufferers ........
amalgam : No , but Gloomsters are sad buggers , aren't they !
Let's find a middle ground , a calming area of realistic optimism . Hoping for good outcomes , yet prepared for the ungood to result instead ................. And always , always taking our Anti-Hickeystamine medication ! [ At all reputable pharmacists near you . Buy the family pack of 500 , and save . Not suitable for children under 12 years . ]
Yep, I was about to clarify my post ("those labeled as "Gloomsters" are rarely...") but you beat me to it.
The BORROW! BORROW! BORROW! SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! CONSUME! CONSUME! CONSUME! types always accuse those with an alternative attitude to personal finance of being "negative" and "gloomy", when instead they should be calling us "intelligent" and "prudent".
Kakapo : OK if we seat you next to amalgam ? ............. And pleased we are today , to welcome two new members into our little group , Anti-Hickstericals Anonymous .
Kakapo , when did you first suspect that you'd fallen onto the slippery slope of gloomsterism ? .............................
When it became blindingly obvious to anybody but a cretin that,
1) Peak oil if its not already passed (2005 ~ 2008) is this decade very probably before 2015.
2) Oil output will drop this decade.
3) GOP had won congress this November.
4) The US's first stimulus's effects are finishing and there wont be a 2nd (see above) at least until way too late).
5) The banks in the US and the EU are quite frankly f*cked, they have to be bailed out by a tax payer who cant afford it.....
6) Consumers/tax payers throughout the developed world will be hammered for increasing tax, job loss and asset loss so wont spend.
7) There is nothing the Central banks or Govnd can do to halt/stop/reverse any of the above....
8) The morons mentioned in 7 dont believe there is an issue because they are idelogically hog tied and intelectually challenged.
Sure carry on betting Gummy, I hope you have everything in US stocks that way when it melts on you and you are wiped out it might finally get through to you just how dire it is.
regards
Hey Steven...hope you are well.....the last paragraph was a bit unnecessary....don't you think...best not to wish that sort of thing on anybody even to prove your point.....it's just flat out mean ...
That aside you make some good points as always....good luck to you.
Yes it was....However I get a bit sick of being called a gloomster...........
I seem surrounded at times by yes men, for ever optimists and prozac junkies who frankly cannot justify their position(s). Im all for being shown Im worng, but as the piece 4 must read says we have prblems that must be fixed first....
The problem I have or I'm seeing is these yes men tell their bosses "yes" the result is realists who say "maybe" or "no" dont get anywhere......and of course when the Yes men find their "yes" goes to custard they blame others, again without justification....
I sometimes think the only way ppl learn is from their mistakes....hence while I dont really want GBH to lose out, I cant see any other way he will see he's not logical or rational, ie solid reasoning behind his position.
regards
That is wot makes our work at the Clinic so fulfilling ! Seeing you recovered , able to laugh again ................. Excuse me , a single tear of joy rolls down my cheek ............. Just remember the graph we drew for the patients : : : " World Wrestling Federation / The Easter Bunny / Hickey's Top 10 @ 10 " : : : All are figments of some twisted minds , they are not real , they cannot hurt you anymore ......................
............ Fly little Elley , fly and be free ........... God Bless............ [ you still owe us $ 49.99 for the Anti-Hickey Tee-Shirt , Copper Wrist-Band , and the Anti-Hickeystamine Powder ! ]
Yes Amalgum...prudent....yep that's what I are.............. a cynical prude......you see GBH that one label gloomster won't fit all......now you smarten you act up a bit there and get a grip on what it means to be as "happy as a pig in shit"...............it's all about perspective.
Count-of-Christov : I have been suitably rebuked today by steven & by Walter Kunz , for appearing happy in public . Henceforth I shall internalise the joy , and externalize the fact that I hail from Aoeteoroa , " Land-of-the-long-white-face " .
Gummy : Life is serious shit ! Get with the plan ........... Peak oil / Global waming / Yankee-doodle debt : We're all doomed , doomed I tell ye , doomed !
Now ............. Feel worse ? ............. Good , so you should ! Be responsible , feel guilty , look depressed ............ And you'll fit in just nicely , here in Hickeysville .
Gumbo my good Man....don't you change a thing....your fine just the way you are ...not to mention a bit o fun here in the land of the wretched where we clutch at the coat tails of strangers and say "buddy can you spare me a dime"....
I think it's hard to get your head around the very nature of people wanting to externalise their depression and in doing so hoping to spread the load.........burden.... whatever....
If it helps them not to do nasty things to themselves I'm all for it....no joke intended...I've now lost a few that way.....
May your happiness continue unabated...............it's not the end of the world.
sssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh ! For Lawd's sake , don't say stuff 'like " it's not the end of the world " ; steven & powerdownkiwi will each have an apoleptic fit ............ they're fully prepared for the cataclysmic depression to come ............ beans & candles stashed in the caves , tofu on the simmer ..........
....... very kind of you Count , I won't bate my sense of wellness in all things under the glow of our sun , far off in the western spiral arm , of the galaxy we call the milky whey ( Fonterras's been lobbying NASA too ! ) .
Rather than smile outwardy , I'll just adopt a lopsided Muldoon smirk , that shouldn't cheer up the gloomsters too much ......... Nor the loomsters ; wot a tangled web they weave .
The daily " Top 10 @ 10 " is the cause of depressions . Lol very good.
I prefer not to think of it as a depression but a readjustment, or a natural part of the industrial worlds cycles. It won't be depression for me that is for sure, I know how to live within my means ie: I don't owe money. I am also pretty resourceful.
I have just finished a book on the Great Depression and the parallels to today are alarming. It was all initiated by criminal behaviour that lead to the loss of innocent investors money through fraudulent schemes. Back then it was stocks, but remarkably similar to the real estate bubble today. Yes too much money was being careless lent by the banks, but criminal minds were behind the sub-prime market.
Another interesting parallel is that the depression didn't start in 1929, but really took about three years of shuffling money around before the rot set in. Europe is frantic to avoid one of the indebted countries falling over, because history tells us that once it starts more will follow.
I think you may be right, Christ-stove! By George..you've got it!
Phil Judd was" Counting the Beat" or latterly, beating the meat ( the internet made me do it..honest, your honour) but the burning question is this " is bernard hickey a multi-millionaire and mores the point ... if there ain't no depression in new zealand..then why not ?
What's wrong with us?
Bernard will make an interesting Millionaire in that the experience will at first be uncomfortable and apologetic...............moving right along to justifiably hard earned..... to look at all those lazy thick bastards whining on about this n that......and then he'll sell the business for a tidy sum...............and start a capitalist site or take Mark Weldon's job.
Good for you Bernard.
You'd do a bloody sight better job of running the NZX than Weldon has , Bernard .
But I fear that a successful Bernard , multimillionaire , would spend his days as a drunk on a bar stool in Phuket , mumbling to the bar flys and ladyboys , " I let them down , my entourage of Gloomsters ......... I got successful , and let them down ............ they believed , truely believed that it was impossible to achieve and to succeed in New Zealand ......... And I , like a complete fool , I went and proved them wrong ............ Another firkin of sangria , Manuel ! ............ "
the thought of our fearless leader ending up in his Hawaiian shirt on a bars-tool and being know as known as Bangla Bernard down there in the steamy nether regions of Patong is a vision to behold..and the ladyboys go " doot-da-doot-da-doot..da da doot da doot"...I love you long time, Mr Bernard..can you be like man called Gummy who once was mine and promised me a Camry and half a condo?"
I found this over at Naked Capitalism
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/11/stoller-a-debtcropper-society-2…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289
Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, [FT that includes Rep Grayson's 'best friend' Dick Cheney!] it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.
There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports.
What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?
“The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”
The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.
CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP
According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex:. Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’ imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.
. The passage in 13 states of the “three strikes” laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.
. Longer sentences.
. The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.
. A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.
. More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.
HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES
Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then “hired out” for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of “hired-out” miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.
During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. “Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex,” comments the Left Business Observer.
Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions.” At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.
Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.
[Former] Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that “there won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor (here).”PRIVATE PRISONS
The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.
Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, “the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.” The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for “good behavior,” but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost “good behavior time” at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES
Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.
After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering “rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.STATISTICS
Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country’s 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.
The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S.
Unbelievable if true. And the parallels to the crime and punishment direction/debate here in NZ is something that should send shivers up our collective consciousness; e.g. political lobbying for longer sentences, the "three strikes" legislation, private prisons - it's all too obvious. The resurrection of slavery in the US. Incomprehensible reality.
@1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010/11/19/irish-morn-loss-of-sovereignty…
Talked today with a friend in Central Europe, the impression is everything is in total mess, Europe breaking down, a feeling of a catastrophe. The prevailing opinion is that big finance is the culprit. Desperation......and no end in sight. Strong opinion that nowhere and nobody is safe, not even we here on the other end of the world.
Talk about gloomsters here on this site, details I heard today are worse in the final consequences.
#7
Why the US banks don't adjust their loan valuations to market value:
Foreclosure hearing from 17.November 2010
check from 2:40
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EjTZOekaQIE&feature=player_embedded#!
And here in New Zealand?
In Noddyland the govt made rude noises about foreign land sales to those who wanted to hear such sounds but in reality the gates have been flung wide open for the RE mob to flog whatever they can to anyone with the 'cash'. The aim being to keep the bubble inflated.
So we have the banks in Noddy 'not acting as a cartel' .... cutting mortgage rates all at the same time to boost the market...and the gate to the bubble wide open to the hot money from the liars at the Fed and the BoE.
Hongkong
Homes sold within six months of purchase will incur a 15 percent stamp duty from today, Financial Secretary John Tsang said in a briefing yesterday. Down payments for homes costing HK$12 million ($1.5 million) or more will rise to 50 percent, from 40 percent.
Singapore
In August, Singapore tightened mortgages and levied a stamp duty on all sales of residential units and land within three years of the purchase date.
Properties resold within 6 months to 12 months will incur a 10 percent stamp duty, while those resold from 12 months to 24 months will be charged 5 percent, Tsang said yesterday. The stamp duty will be split between buyers and sellers
elsewhere
South Korea revived a tax on foreigners investing in its bonds this week; Thailand is ending foreigners’ 15 percent tax exemption on income from domestic bonds, while Brazil tripled a tax on purchases of local fixed-income assets by overseas investors
Once again the chance for this unbalanced property turd of an economy to 'come right' by deflating the bubbles, will be swept away as hot money floods in. It's goodbye to Kiwi families ever being able to afford their own homes and hello to perpetual serfdom for the majority...working to feed and fatten the banks so they can entrap another generation into their dirty little game of farming the Kiwi families.
It's indicative of the seriousness of the downturn throughout the economy Gummy but more so in the business property sector. I notice the supermarket chain do not want to own the property...you would think that alone is warning enough....bet the banks avoid this shite.
The name of the game now is to protect wealth not take on more risk. I would rather stay just ahead of the planned debasement of the Kiwi and wait out this chaotic market manipulation by the Fed and every other lying reserve bank and govt.
The funeral for the euro is being planned and the eu will be torn apart. The US$ is being debased as quickly as Bernanke can crank the printer. Housing and commercial property values in the UK and USA are set to take another dive. In aus the property fear is not unlike swimmers desperate to leave the surf to escape the Whitepointer.
English's comments last week were aimed at taking the heat out of some awful fiscal stats due for release in December.
Gummy and Wolly
Here's the version on our site.
http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/opinion-are-property-syndications-new…
Thanks for the reminder for me to put it up here
cheers
Bernard
ltsd
I'm wondering what's going on here with one of the first PPP's being a private prison with a yet to be announced partner http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10688707
Great piece,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8145531/This-b…
"The problem is that you cannot ultimately fix an underlying solvency problem by forcing a country to borrow even more. That only further reduces the chances of the debt ever being repaid. And if markets begin to believe that the countries on the periphery of the eurozone will be permanently underwritten by the rest, it will weaken the creditworthiness of the core: there is already some evidence of this in German bond yields.
In any case, constantly having to bail out the insolvent fringe will eventually become politically unacceptable among those forced to pick up the tab. In Germany, the EU’s bail-out fund is already subject to legal challenge, while in Britain, there is understandable horror at being roped into the Irish rescue. Why should our highly taxed businesses be forced to subsidise super-low rates of corporation tax in Ireland? It’s unfair and objectionable. "
"Is there any way out of this mess? One thing is for sure: taxpayers can no longer be expected to pay the costs of all this rotten lending. That game of “bail us out or suffer the consequences” has been played for long enough. It’s not just intolerable, but has become a major part of the problem."
Maybe there is hope that the voter will rebell....of course the banksters will run leaving the voter with no access tot heir money as banks collapse....because this is what will happen...
I think its time to a) super tax the villians b) jail more than a few.
regards
Couldn't resist posting this:
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/111360/7-towns-where-land-…
Yes, it's free land. Honest.
Interesting the folk who can't/won't differentiate between those who see ahead/point out problems , and those who are of a negative inclination.
I would have commented earlier, but I was having too much fun doing the Victorian/Steampunk/pennyfakething thing over the weekend, to even turn the computer on.
I'll try a different tack perhaps:
Ireland is great news for NZ - John Key says we can now be a financial services sector (we're the only ones stupid enough not to catch on yet?).
Begorrah!
How are things in Glocca Morra?
Is that little brook still leaping there?
Does it still run down to Donny cove?
Through all the empty places buildin' there?
Better GBH?
Toorali-addity (or minusy if in a recession)
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