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Financial fuckery thread

Started by Cain, March 12, 2009, 09:14:45 AM

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Lyris_Nymphetamine

profit off the next economic collapse by investing in alcohol and tobacco companies.

Elder Iptuous

Quote from: Lyris_Nymphetamine on April 01, 2009, 04:12:18 AM
profit off the next economic collapse by investing in alcohol and tobacco companies.

Cain

Economic Intelligence Unit predicts

60% chance of stablization of the world economy
30% chance of worldwide depression
10% chance of worldwide depression with major social disruption

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1016307.shtml

QuoteThe world economy is at grave risk of entering a depression, in which developed-world growth rates average less than 1% per annum between 2009 and 2013, according to a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The depression scenario carries a 30% probability, while there is a 60% chance that the stimulus operations now underway will restore stability by 2010/11, albeit at lower growth levels than we've been accustomed to. A third scenario, in which failing confidence in the US economy leads to mass withdrawal from dollar-denominated assets and a collapse in the US currency, carries a 10% probability.

Depression would be characterised by mass bankruptcies and job losses. In a vicious cycle of debt deflation, the burden of debt would rise in real terms as collateral declined in value and incomes fell. As bad debts piled up, banks' balance-sheets would be weakened, resulting in forced asset sales. These would drive down prices further. Like banks and financial institutions, households and companies would "deleverage", disposing of assets at fire-sale prices to pay down debt.

Elder Iptuous

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5303F820090401
QuoteU.S. private sector axes 742,000 jobs in March
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Job losses in the U.S. private sector accelerated in March, more than economists' expectations, according to a report by ADP Employer Services on Wednesday.

Private employers cut jobs by a record 742,000 in March versus a 706,000 revised cut in February that was originally reported at 697,000 jobs, said ADP, which has been carrying out the survey since 2001.

fomenter

"This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper on Sunday. The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?"

Dear Mr.President,
Patriotic retirement:
There's about 40 million people over 50 in the work force; pay them $1 million apiece severance with stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings
     - Unemployment fixed.
2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered
     - Auto Industry fixed.
3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage
     - Housing Crisis fixed.  "


"So she says to me, do you wanna be a BAD boy? And I say YEAH baby YEAH! Surf's up space ponies! I'm makin' gravy... Without the lumps. HAAA-ha-ha-ha!"


hmroogp

Iason Ouabache

Well, it would have been cheaper than the AIG bailouts.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
    \
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Elder Iptuous

 :?
40*10^6 X 10^6 = 40 trillion dollars.
...not cheaper than AIG bailout...
plus AIG bailout is debt deflation at lofty eschelons, whereas 40 trillion dollars in Federal Reserve Notes floating around would make a quick impact on the price of a happy meal...
i've seen lots of 'obvious quick solutions' to this mess come through my mailbox, but people don't realize that it has taken decades of financial engineering to destroy the economy thusly, and centuries for the setup.  this problem won't be solved.
at all.















ever.

fomenter

not to confident about the source, but i found the comparison between Americas new economic "plan" and those of fascists interesting, anybody know if they are accurate or valid comparisons?

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/02/il-duce-redux
"So she says to me, do you wanna be a BAD boy? And I say YEAH baby YEAH! Surf's up space ponies! I'm makin' gravy... Without the lumps. HAAA-ha-ha-ha!"


hmroogp

Cain

Accurate, maybe (I have yet to read the link).  Valid?  Probably not:

Quote from: An Anatomy of Fascism by Robert PaxtonEven at its most radical, however, fascists' anticapitalist rhetoric was selective. While they denounced speculative international finance (along with all other forms of internationalism, cosmopolitanism, or globalization -- capitalist as well as socialist), they respected the property of national producers, who were to form the social base of the reinvigorated nation. When they denounced the bourgeoisie, it was for being too flabby and individualistic to make a nation strong, not for robbing workers of the value they added. What they criticized in capitalism was not its exploitation but its materialism, its indifference to the nation, its inability to stir souls. More deeply, fascists rejected the notion that economic forces are the prime movers of history. For fascists, the dysfunctional capitalism of the interwar period did not need fundamental reordering; its ills could be cured simply by applying sufficient political will to the creation of full employment and productivity. Once in power, fascist regimes confiscated property only from political opponents, foreigners, or Jews. None altered the social hierarchy, except to catapult a few adventurers into high places. At most, they replaced market forces with state economic management, but, in the trough of the Great Depression, most businessmen initially approved of that.

tl;dr version: fascists don't care about economics much, and when they do, they tend towards crass populism designed to keep the proles entertained while changing nothing much in reality.

LMNO

#55
Reich would tend to agree.


LMNO
-lends too much weight to the opinions of books he's currently reading.

Cain

Reich combined Marxist social analysis with Freudian psychoanalysis, as I recall.  It would be hard to find a single more antithetical school of thought to Fascism, especially its economically lacking theoretical base.

Not to say Reich's wrong, I think he certainly has a point, just to illustrate that this is one of several major points of depature between Marxist and Fascist theory and one he would seize upon to show the intellectual shallowness and lack of validity for the international fascist movement.

fomenter

#57
QuoteTrying to handle the crisis, the Fascist government nationalized the holdings of large banks which had accrued significant industrial securities. The government also issued new securities to provide a source of credit for the banks and began enlisting the help of various cartels.... The government offered recognition and support to these organizations in exchange for promises that they would manipulate prices in accordance with government priorities. A number of mixed entities were formed... whose purpose it was to bring together representatives of the government and of the major businesses.... This economic model based on a partnership between government and business was soon extended to the political sphere, in what came to be known as corporatism.... The Fascists began to impose significant tariffs and other trade barriers.... Various banking and industrial companies were financially supported by the state.... [The national leader] created the [New Governmental Entity]....[which soon] controlled 20% of [the nation's] industry through government-linked companies.... [The national leader] also adopted a Keynesian policy of government spending on public works to stimulate the economy.... Public works spending tripled to overtake defense spending as the largest item of government expenditure.

As much as that description sounds like U.S. government policy begun under George W. Bush and now greatly expanding under Barack Obama, the above passage of course describes the economics of fascist Italy in the 1930s, as summed up by Wikipedia. (A quick Google search produces plenty of similar summaries of "economic fascism.") Furthermore, "The Fascist conception of life," Mussolini wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual."

Obama came close to those same sentiments in his most recent press conference: "But one of the most important lessons to learn from this crisis is that our economy only works if we recognize that we're all in this together, that we all have responsibilities to each other and to our country.... We'll recover from this recession, but it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that, when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interest to the wider set of obligations we have toward each other, that's when we succeed, that's when we prosper, and that's what is needed right now."
first part of linked article, the comparison goes on from there and seems to get more wingnuty the closer you get to the bottom of the page...(page 2 is craptacular_)

also noted they are quoting wikipedia and claiming the existence of other sources for those that look (i haven't)
"So she says to me, do you wanna be a BAD boy? And I say YEAH baby YEAH! Surf's up space ponies! I'm makin' gravy... Without the lumps. HAAA-ha-ha-ha!"


hmroogp

Cain

Its worth noting that the G20 are seeking to continue free trade and punish protectionist tendencies, rendering "The Fascists began to impose significant tariffs and other trade barriers" as pointless to the discussion.

QuoteJust as Mussolini did (in slightly different words), Obama repeatedly talks about using government to "leverage" private investment for the greater good.

So did David Hume, who is now presumably a "classical liberal fascist", or something.  Besides, no matter what the President says, its going the other way, socializing the losses, to the detriment of society, in order to prop up the lifestyles of a far smaller amount of private figures.

QuoteMeanwhile, his close ally Barney Frank introduced a bill to give the Treasury Secretary the power to set all salary levels for all employees of any companies in which the government has a capital stake.

ZOMG MEDIOCRE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY = FASCISM.  For real?  If the government is the capital stakeholder, it can do anything up to and including give the entire company's liquid assets to Barack Obama's puppy as a birthday present.  And quite frankly, that has some appeal, if only for the novelty value.

QuoteAs George Will has written, Congress has delegated so much economic authority to the Treasury, the Fed, and the president that the Constitution itself has almost certainly been shredded in the panic.

Well its certainly a good thing George Will was around all those other times to scold panicking governments intent on shredding the Constitution.  Oh, wait.

QuoteMeanwhile, in Congress's rush to pass a huge expansion of "national service" programs, almost exactly as outlined by Obama in a 2007 speech, few congressman likely realized that the details  included "campuses" with "superintendents" of uniformed youth, formed into "cadres," and indoctrinated even in math and science classes in the ideals of "service learning" financed through a "social innovation fund" funneled through favored "community organizations." (ACORN, anyone?) Even elementary school students would be recruited for these government-sponsored efforts.

ACORN is, after all, the Illuminati, and since "[t]he quintessential liberal fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore", it would make sense to bring the teachers in, too.  You wont be laughing when the Peace Corps break down your door and force you to watch Rachel Maddow re-runs and Michael Moore films 24/7, no siree (ironic aside: Neoconservative theorists have said as bold as day they intend to use war to brutalize the nation and turn it from its soft, decadent state into an imperial nation of blood and iron, and this is considered more fascist?  Puh-leeze).

QuoteAs the Washington Examiner editorialized, it all sounds like a "creepy authoritarianism" on the loose.

Plus ca change, as our fine French allies would no doubt snicker.

QuoteSince when was it government's role, as Obama claims, to "invest" in all sorts of new technologies

I mean, who uses this stupid fucking "internet" anyway?

QuoteThe stadium speeches in front of a Greek emperor's columns. The permanent campaign, the deliberate ubiquity. The "public service" radio ads with the president himself urging national service upon us. The iconic imagery on campaign materials. The millennial language about his own election as the moment when seas stopped rising and Earth started healing and about the need to "save the planet." The traveling abroad with an official entourage of 500 people (and a limo nicknamed "The Beast"). The fawning media. The simplistic slogans chanted over and over.

Yeah, Bush was kinda fascist, now you mention it.  What do you mean you were talking about someone else?

QuoteFinally, there is Obama's elevation of raw science to what he calls its "rightful place" as an end in itself, as if divorced from questions of morality. As Charles Krauthammer  wrote, "how anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee...is hard to fathom."

...Krauthammer said, as he urged on the nuclear holocaust of the state of Iran.

QuoteTo be clear, none of this is to even come close to equating the Obama administration with Nazism. The conflation of Nazism with fascism is a gross misunderstanding of history; the original fascism and Nazism are entirely different breeds of vipers, with the latter being far more deadly.

Sure.  He's a fascist, but you don't mean that in a bad, Hitler way.  Also, for real?   I guess Hitler being inspired by Mussolini and constantly drawing comparisons between Il Duce and himself and, I don't know, considering him an ideological ally with the same essential goals and beliefs sure sounds like a good case for a link between fascism and Nazism.  But, you know, I only spent 3 years studying Nazi Germany and European interwar history, so what would I know?

QuoteThe diminution of liberty, the enhanced state control, the indoctrination of youth, and the cult of the leader all violate basic tenets of the American experiment.

"Except when a Republican does it".

QuoteAlready, there is an organized movement afoot to repeal the 22nd Amendment that limits presidents to two terms.

Yeah, its a good thing previous leaders, like Bush, didn't harbour any dictatorial ambitions, isn't it?

The thing that most annoys me about the American right is their hypocrisy makes it impossible to take them seriously at all.  Because they are a bunch of hysterical, paranoid fantasists who spend their time projecting their own worst traits onto their enemies, I am inclined to disbelieve them from the outset - knowing full well that if their guy were the one doing such things, they would be enthusiastically cheerleading it on without so much as a worry in the world.

Adios

Quote from: Lyris_Nymphetamine on April 01, 2009, 04:12:18 AM
profit off the next economic collapse by investing in alcohol and tobacco companies.

Bad idea. They are in danger of being 'sin taxed' right out of business.