Look, I’m rich.
Archive for the ‘eCONomics’ Category
I’m rich.
Monday, January 18th, 2010Chinese Finger Cuffs
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010Paul Krugman has an intersting piece on Chinese mercantilism: called Chinese New Year
Here is what I think: China has put themselves into Chinese finger cuffs. They have too many dollars, but trying to sell them would devalue the currency, causing them to take even more losses. They can’t get their fingers out without squeezing themselves.
November Grudge Match
Thursday, November 13th, 2008In keeping with my new monthly challenge, I hereby challenge Hank Paulson to a vale tudo / cage match.
If he excepts the challenge, I would like the winner to receive 800 billion dollars of U.S taxpayer money. If he is victorious, he could use the money to bail out his larcenous buddies at Goldman Sachs… oh wait, he did that already…
“Let’s get it on!”
Bailout.
Friday, October 3rd, 2008Oh well….
I guess it just took some pork.
At least my representative opposed it.
Hooray, the bailout didn’t pass!
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008Hooray, the bailout didn’t pass!
The market dropped yesterday, and today is recovering.
No big deal.
For the record, I’m not just a single crazy conspiracy theroist. There a lot of people thought it was a stupid idea to bail out the rich, including 200 economists who sent a letter to Congress saying it was a bad idea.
It was “rewarding greed and stupidity” or “The Great Bank Robbery of 2008“
Bailout.
Monday, September 29th, 2008Just for the record, this bailout plan sucks.
It is just going to help a financial elite of bankers that have already hidden the billions of dollars they received when they gamed the system. The entire thing is a con. The bankers convinced the politicians to hollow-out the Glass-Steagall Act, which paved this nightmare. Now, the people who are most harmed by the meltdown are going to have pay for it: the average American taxpayer. You can’t just print up 700 billion dollars without inflation.
Personally, I believe any bailout plan should start with the bankers giving back their bonuses. Step two, should be to let the chips fall where they may.
It’s like that saying, if you lend me a hundred dollars and I can’t pay you back, I’ve got a problem. If you lend me 100 million dollars and I can’t pay you back, you’ve got the problem.
The banks have the problem. Let them go out of business. That is what the FDIC is for, to pick up the pieces when banks fail. So let them. Let the “free markets” cull the herd of sick financial institutions.
This is another example of socialism for the rich, with the bill going to the poor.
It’s the end of the world as we know it… thank god.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008The great neoliberal phase of the world economy has crashed into a brick wall.
The greed of the banking class knows no bounds, and they have proven it again and again.
The liabilities of Barclays PLC, at £1.3 trillion – with a leverage ratio of 60 – exceed the entire U.K. economy, they say. – Matthew Dalton
But now we the arrival of peak oil, the looming resource wars, our planet of slums and garbage, and our non-stop lust for slave-made Chinese goods, we are truly entering a New World Order.
Let’s bury neoliberalism beside Milton Friedman and move on.
At this point, any other economic policy should be an improvement.
I’m excited for the new future.
Another Oil War?
Sunday, September 21st, 2008Something weird is going on in Brazil, and I hope it is just saber-rattling. The President of Brazil is claiming that they need to protect themselves from people stealing their offshore oil. This announcement comes as the U.S. Navy is reestablishing the U.S. Fourth Fleet, a fleet that will patrol the Caribbean and Latin America.
“The (Brazilian) Navy plays an important role in protecting our subsalt reserves, because the men of Fourth Fleet are almost there on top of the subsalt areas,” Lula said in a speech inaugurating a new oil platform in southern Brazil.”
“Our Navy has to be the guardian of our offshore oil platforms to protect our patrimony, because before you know it some wise guy will come along and say: ‘This is mine, it’s at the bottom of the ocean anyway, so it’s mine.’”
Please let’s not have another war, and not have it been over oil… again! I thought we were finished with this crap.
(That said, I like the use of the phrase “wise guy”, it hearkens back to an age when gangsters at least had snappy lingo.)
Hooverville.
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008I’m still reading “The Grapes of Wrath” and it is spooky how similar the book is to current day America. It is actually making the book difficult to continue reading.
Here are some comparisons:
| Grapes of Wrath | Current day ‘Merica |
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I think I’ll stay right here.
But I’ll update the comparison as it plays out.
Steinbeck
Monday, March 10th, 2008John Steinbeck is “da man”. I am reading “The Grapes of Wrath” and am very impressed. He is incredibly skilled.
This book was written during the Great Depression in America. Specifically, he talks about the rise of big business as well as a the merchant banking class, mass production and the consolidation of small farms and small business. This book is about the end of the American Dream. At least, so far… I’m not finished with it. But I have a feeling that this book is going to be one of my favorites. Which is really nice. It is a treat to be reading a book that is so good, that you know it will be a book you will tell others to read.
Here is a quote:
In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid anymore.
(Ch 15)
There is also a great deal of well executed symbolism and metaphor. But it isn’t forced and it isn’t high-fallutin’. It just seems to be an extension of the story.