Weekend Conspiracy Theory - Can You Stomach It?
A: Are we all just pawns in a bigger chess game? I'm not one to buy into conspiracies, but this read is just too crazy, given what we know of today's credit/financial crisis and how it has evolved from dynamics/products such as counterparty risk, credit default swaps, complex derivatives - mortgage backed securities, corporate bonds, treasury/commodity holdings, insider trading, friendly bailouts, deregulation, etc.. The read is simply too juicy and intriguing not to share with you guys. I repeat, I'm not one to buy into conspiracy theories, including this one, but this is just too eery to completely dismiss considering what has happened to date in the financial system.
I found this read here, but I think its part of an upcoming October report due out this weekend from Robb Kirby's website, Kirby Analytics Newsletter. Not sure. I highlighted some interesting sentences. My head is spinning and I, Noah, can not verify all the claims made in the piece. Print, Have a Drink, Don't Shoot Yourself & Enjoy (note: "CDSwap" = Credit Default Swap)!
THE MONSTER, ITS BROKER & HARLOT
JPMorgan will require fresh asset meat every several weeks in order to survive, but the process will result in a sequence of severely damaging CDSwap fires. Perversely, the FDIC is their investment banker agent. Two mergers of questionable nature highlight the altered role of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), which no longer protects bank depositors or their investors, but rather serves JPMorgan Chase. When Bank of America merged with Merrill Lynch, a trend started, one that exposed private stock brokerage accounts. Officially they can be legally borrowed across subsidiary lines. The FDIC averted a failure of Merrill Lynch without the credit default implications.
The other event was more blatant, as the FDIC steered Washington Mutual out of bankruptcy failure and into the JPMorgan slaughterhouse. Inside its chambers, JPM gobbled up the WaMu deposits and benefited from ratio improvements. Senior bond holders were crushed, fully denied due process from bankruptcy. The FDIC has become an ugly investment banker lookalike, serving JPM and not the US public. The FDIC owns a pitifully small $45 billion in funds available for bank bailouts, at June count. When the dust clears a year or more from now, many multiples more will be necessary for many bank failures.
The path of JPMorgan growth into a FRANKENSTEIN took radical changes in course after both the failures of Lehman Brothers and recognition that Fannie Mae & Fannie Mae had to be taken over by the USGovt. To halt the run on their bonds, the USGovt acquired the entire F&F Cesspool. The impact hit the Credit Default Swap market immediately. AIG had been weakened one week earlier from the technical default of Fannie & Freddie, which resulted in broad CDSwap payout's. Ripple effects from the Lehman Brothers failure that followed were deep and broad throughout the system, killing AIG. The Wall Street central harlot (Goldman Sachs) advised the USGovt to assume full control and risk of AIG, as GSachs avoided $20 billion in sudden losses in the nick of time, a pure coincidence!
The entire episode with Wells Fargo bidding for Wachovia, in competition from Citigroup, is steeped in comedy with vampire stars. The grapevine in Washington and Wall Street passes word that the Citigroup versus Wachovia wrestling match was actually a sponsored backdoor bailout attempt to save Citigroup, not just Wachovia. Again, the FDIC was the matchmaker. My term has been ‘Dead Marrying the Dead' which still holds true, since Citigroup has been dead for one year. Under the original Citigroup proposal, the FDIC had arranged for guarantees of $42 billion for Wachovia debt by the US Fed. The new Wells Fargo deal enabled the US taxpayers to get off the hook. The reversal by the FDIC to serve the public has caused gigantic Wall Street problems, as Citigroup now finds itself in a position more perilous than anyone believed. This battle has flip-flopped once, and might again. Citigroup would probably have died if not for the USGovt purchase of bank stocks.
THE TEETH OF THE MONSTER REVEALED
JPMorgan is a monster predator at work, hidden from view. After the Fannie Mae experience, covering their giant raft of CDSwap contracts, making huge payout's, JPMorgan was close to a bankruptcy. They needed to feed off another bank, to consume private deposits and thus shore up the balance sheet. Lehman Brothers was let go to fail, but its failure would surely trigger a gigantic wave of credit market fires. The Lehman CDSwap resolution has cost roughly $300 billion, paying 91 cents per dollar of coverage on their failed bonds. The Wall Street Powers permitted Lehman to fail, so as to prevent a JPMorgan failure, thus risking that the fires caused could be contained in CDSwap fallout. The irony is that JPMorgan undoubtedly suffered considerably from that fire in fallout. Now JPMorgan might need another Wall Street failure, for to consume another block of assets, but with yet another ensuing CDSwap fire. JPMorgan is a monster predator at work, soon hungry again. It might be eyeing Morgan Stanley. We might discover a failure in an unexpected place, like a big insurance firm, whose sector condition is not well advertised.
With each big bank failure, whether a commercial bank or investment bank, heavy damage is done to the system. The CDSwap destruction is mostly hidden, with large pillars burned out. We the people hear of the destruction only if and when a major bank fails as a result. No death, no news, however but with potentially significant hidden structural damage. As financial firms pay out vast sums on CDSwaps as in the Lehman case, and the Fannie Mae case, and the Freddie Mac case, the system bleeds capital. Lending suffers. The sequence corresponds to a powerful vicious cycle. JPMorgan will need more deaths to survive, but each death causes more deadly CDSwap fires. JPMorgan is a monster predator at work, which leaves fires on pathways where it last stepped. The best analogy is that CDSwap contract payout's from bond failures are like mini-Hiroshima events that might lead to a bigger such event. Ironically, to save JPM the financial system must destroy the shadow banking system centered in New York City, since Wall Street firms, plus Bank of America are at its center. The system lacks disclosure and transparency, just like Wall Street likes it.
Permit the pathogenesis to proceed further, and the majority of Western bank system must be burned in order to leave JPMorgan as prominent survivor to rule over a scorched empire. This process is a sick consolidation. The bank conglomerate is a major crime syndicate colossus, and center of the drug traffic money laundering, coordinated by security agencies, fully condoned by the US Federal Reserve itself. The AIG story is nowhere complete, the latest being their expensive parties. AIG has caused major complications, another monster that will resurface periodically at feeding time. Personally, my wish is to see the RICO law brought forward, at least to deposit the monster in a cage. In done my way, not a single additional US Congressional bill would be approved and granted for a bailout or rescue without rapid investigation, prosecution, turn to state's evidence, asset seizure, restitution, and imprisonment for dozens of Wall Street executives, starting with Hank Paulson.
STOCK MANIPULATION WITH DEEP MOTIVE
Few analysts, pundits, or anchors are aware of the mammoth conflict of interest involved with the USTreasury Bond sales required to pay for all the bailouts. JPMorgan, with the essential aid of Goldman Sachs, plot to bring down the DJIA index and the S&P500 index whenever the USTreasury conducts auctions or needs Congressional passage of key bailout bills. They have sold $194 billion of Cash Mgmt Bills (CMB) in the last two weeks, today $70B, tomorrow another $60B. The big stock declines seen recently work to the BENEFIT of the USTreasury and US Fed. as agent for auctions. TBill yields are down near zero, in case you have not noticed, with principal prices corresponding almost as high as the bond permits. The USGovt is conducting auctions for TBills at top dollar prices, when its credit rating should be caving in radically upon downgrades. These USTreasurys are destined to enter default at a later date, where the loss to foreign investors will be maximized. Most of the US public has savings dominated by stocks, with little in bonds. So the US public is being fleeced, coming and going, since even money markets contain toxic mortgage bonds. Look for the stock market decline to come to a surprising end when the USGovt has completed the majority of their planned emergency supply sales via auction.
The Wall Street tactics have recently turned more vicious and devious, actually creating volatility, producing fear for political purpose. They accuse hedge funds of driving up the crude oil price, rendering great harm to the US Economy and US citizens. So they urged unsuccessfully the Securities & Exchange Commission to force hedge funds to reveal their speculative positions. The Wall Street thieves and conmen wish to learn details on hedge fund positions so as to target them illicitly. In a queer twist, JPMorgan has benefited from an interesting double kill. They exploit hedge funds, wreck them, then encourage them into the fold at JPM in brokerage accounts, where their private accounts are rendered vulnerable under the new US Fed. rules. JPMorgan is a monster predator at work, which is permitted to manipulate markets and clients with total impunity.
There is one more detail. Lest one forget, Goldman Sachs was exempt from the short rule restriction placed on a few hundred financial stocks traded. The reason had something to do with market stability and integrity assurance! Goldman Sachs clearly profited from the ups & down in the Dow and S&P500, lifting stocks after Congressional agreements, pulling them down before those agreements. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs profit handsomely when the USGovt Plunge Protection Team pushes the stock indexes up with their usual methods. Of course JPM and GSachs are the managers of the PPT efforts. YES, IT IS TIME TO PUKE NOW!!!
HIDDEN US GOVT COUP BY WALL STREET
The US Congress has been subverted by intimidation and ignorance, maybe bribery. Regulators and law enforcement bodies are mere accomplices. The entire US banking system has undergone an unprecedented grand nationalize initiative, including the financial system, when considering the mortgage and insurance giants. The total bailouts are huge when put into perspective. This is a hidden coup, complete with deep fraud, corruption, and ruin for both prosecutors and whistle blowers. The US Dollar is caught in the middle of a black hole scrambled with fraud. Paulson is the new Chancellor of US Inc, Bernanke the new Currency Lithography Manager, and Sheila Bair the Investment Banker (a la Goldman Suchs). Paulson assumes all powers over the financial state from the president, via the banking industry control.
The government bailout redemption of $trillion past fraud closes the loop. Bernanke manages all efforts to use printed money for the purpose of buying worthless counterfeited and fraud-laced bonds, buying commercial bonds and posted collateral among businesses, as well as making printed paper products available to foreign central banks in relief of past fraud. Bair will act as the director of slaughterhouse traffic for JPMorgan, which needs a steady supply of bank deposits to offset their destroyed balance sheet from continued credit derivative implosion, thereby betraying the chartered FDIC pledge to protect bank depositors and senior bank bond holders through liquidation procedures, with full recognition of expedience. Hail to the king, long live the king! The US public seems so dumbstruck that it cannot demand even full disclosure of the process, let alone private offshore bank accounts for the new leaders of the successful coup.
The coup formalizes a climax to a Ponzi Scheme. A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service bearing true value delivered. With the ongoing steadfast support offered by Alan Greenspan, they were able to maintain an incredible Ponzi scheme. They sold financial toxic waste products in the form of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO), Structured Investment Vehicles (SIV), Unidentified Financial Objects (UFO), and Credit Default Swaps (CDS). My favorite remains the UFOs. The corruption of politicians in Congress enabled the process, with relaxed guidance by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The two key ingredients for the Ponzi Scheme are a mythological ideology and a high priest to endorse the game from a credible pulpit. Alan Greenspan claimed legitimacy of the US banking system, blessed credit growth and fractional bank practices as beneficial, and praised risk pricing systems using credit derivatives as sophisticated. The high priest used to be Greenspan, but now a tag team has replaced him. Hank Paulson is the spearhead for the great coup of the US financial system. Usage of short restrictions rules has been key to both instilling instability at necessary times, and raiding hedge funds. US Fed. Chairman Bernanke swaps USTBonds for any piece of bonded garbage known to mankind. Mammoth placements of leveraged trades by Wall Street firms make for some of the most grotesque insider trading in US history.
DECEIT & INTIMIDATION
The lies, deceit, backroom pressure, and fleecing of the American public is deep. Take the Emergency Economic Stability Act. Most of the initial $250 billion outlay was not devoted to American bankers, but rather to foreign bankers, primarily in Europe and England, and to purchase preferred US bank stocks. The US public was not told about this redirection, which constitutes misallocation, misappropriation, and fraud. Tremendous backroom pressure was exerted at every step. The underlying assets involved in swaps do not even have to be US-based mortgage bonds. The formerly submitted Paulson Manifesto was revived in a power grab, complete with considerable infighting and squabbles, since Morgan Stanley was given favor. The usage of funds to buy investment stakes in the giant US banks is yet another direct Fascist Business Model tactic, assisting banks close to the power center, yet reeking with corruption. The sickening irony is that they have no more money to disseminate and distribute. They cannot reveal their lies until they formally request more Congressional funds. Much discussion has come that the USGovt should adopt the Swedish model in the resolution of the current crisis. Not in a New York minute!! That would require heavy stock and bond losses, and more transparency of scum. Interestingly, the market discounts words as worthless, while bailout actions fail to produce even a positive reaction for a full day, until Monday last week when the Dow Jones Industrial index rose over 900 points. That was clearly Wall Street engineering a profitable short cover rally. Check S&P futures positions beforehand, if you can. The credibility of the US Fed. is close to being destroyed. On October 15, the same Dow Jones index fell over 700 points, almost 8%. Even the global rate cut was rejected by stock markets, a major insult.
Intimidation of the US Congress has been huge and powerful, similar to when the Patriot Act was passed in 2002. The Congress was actually threatened by martial law in the cities of the United States if the big bailout package was not passed two weeks ago! This was not reported on CNN or CNBC, but C-Span did cover it. The mobilization of the US Army for civilian control is well known in the past couple weeks. See the Third Brigade back from combat duty in Iraq. This account came from Rep Brad Sherman of California. To achieve supposed financial stability, the nation succumbed to totalitarianism by Wall Street thieves, conmen, fraud kings, and criminals. Instead, the bailout only covered up $trillion fraud. My position has been very stable and consistent, that such tactics are typical characteristics of the Fascist Business Model. The state merges with the large corporations, who proceed to terrorize the citizenry after unspeakable protected corruption and theft. To object is to be labeled unpatriotic!
TOP DOWN SOLUTION FAVORS THE ELITE
The top-down approach used to date aids the wealthy bankers, while the homeowners are denied aid. That aid is promised but rarely arrives. The fundamental problem here is that billion$ are devoted to shore up insolvent banks, to redeem their worthless (or nearly worthless) bonds, and to give a giant pass to the executives. Trust has eroded throughout the system. Banks distrust each other's collateral. The result is that eventually the US Economy will enter not a recession, not a depression, but a DISINTEGRATION PHASE. Despite Bernanke's studious efforts, borrowing from revisionist history, his liquidity is nothing more than bailouts at the top for the perpetrators of the housing bubble and mortgage debacle. The bank system benefits little inside the US walls of finance. A bottom-up approach might have had a chance to succeed, but a top-down approach is a sham. To expect a top-down solution that actually relieves the housing inventory logjam is insane. That is like feeding a teenager with meals placed inside the human rectum, expecting nutrients to find their way to the rest of the body! The credit mechanisms do not travel upward within the pyramid, but rather in the downward direction, starting with a borrower, a good collateralized risk, and an underwritten loan, when plenty of lending capital is available. The US public has bought this stupid ‘Trickle Down' philosophy for years, learning nothing. The US Economy is on the verge of collapsing. Short-term credit is being denied at key supplier intermediary steps, soon to result in recognized disintegration.
The primary practical objective of this corrupt trio (JPM, GSax, FDIC) is to avoid Credit Default Swap fires, which would bring an end to their reign of terror. This US Economic failure is in progress and is unstoppable. The 1930 Depression resulted after monumental credit abuse from the bottom up, as hundreds of thousands of people leveraged investments 10:1 with stocks primarily. The 2000 Depression will come after monumental credit abuse from the top down, as hundreds of big financial firms leveraged investments by 7:1 and 20:1 with bonds primarily. The most absurd of all is the CDO-squared, leveraging upon leverage. Total seizures have crippled the banking system. Short-term credit has largely vanished, as letters of credit are routinely not honoured at ports in the United States. The panic will continue, especially when supplies dry up.
GOLD & SILVER AWAIT THEIR EXALTED STATUS
We are witnessing the disintegration cited in my recent forecasts. It is a systemic failure, marred by lost confidence and trust in the entire financial system. Expect foreigners soon to pull the rug from under the American syndicates in control. Several key meetings have already concluded, totally unreported in the US press, which occurred in Berlin Germany. Consider it the Anti-G7 Meeting. Implications are profound, and involved the Shanghai Coop Org tangentially, since its member nations possess so much new commodity supply. Consider it the Anti-NATO group. An important and powerful alternative financial system is soon to spring into action, including high-level bilateral barter. Those who expect the current US Regime to continue their financial terror are in for a big surprise.
Expect defaults in the COMEX with gold & silver, whose prices for paper vastly diverge from physical, to the anger of foreigners watching. They hold massive precious metals assets. Disparities now contribute to powerful forces, sure to break the current system. Grand systemic changes come. THE RESULT WILL BE A BREATH-TAKING DISCONTINUITY EVENT.
Ironically, the more inner anguish felt on the falling gold & silver prices, the closer we are to a new financial framework, with the US Dollar relegated to a Third World role. A REPLACEMENT GLOBAL RESERVE CURRENCY HAS ALREADY BEEN DECIDED UPON. Its launch awaits the proper moment. The Americans are last to know, as usual. The US leaders are under the illusion of being in control!



Comments (15)
I guess Mayer Amschel Rothschild was right “Give me control over a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws.”
deposits and despots.
Posted by All Mi T | October 18, 2008 9:50 PM
When I first started on the floor of the Amex, 31 (ouch!) years ago, there was a trader who wore a pin on his trading jacket, that said "Chicken Little was Right, The Sky is Falling" he told me it was to remind himself to always be long, and never be short, extra puts. I've got a feeling, if he's still alive, that Stanley K is sitting pretty. Of course he may need a gun to get his money out. Then again, I'd also bet that Stan has quite a bit in physical gold right now too!
On another point, at every financial crisis that I can remember, from the Joe Granville selloffs, to the crash, Long Term Capital, Asian Contagion, etc, it does seem that there is someone who can very articulately put together a thesis where there is no bottom. And quite often there is a conspiracy theory out there too. "They" have always been wrong, and George Bush didn't order the WTC attacks........LETS HOPE THEIR TRACK RECORD HOLDS UP!
Posted by Randy Reis | October 19, 2008 7:38 AM
Yea, this guy seemed to connect the dots very well for his theory. It is eery though.
Posted by Noah | October 19, 2008 8:57 AM
When I was in college...way back when, the tide of the anti government, anti establishment, anti adults (don't trust anyone over 30) 1960s fervor was waning, but still pretty strong in academia (it never really left from what I can see). I took a course called nuclear energy in war and peace. It was a fairly balanced class where we read texts that were both pro and con nuclear weapons and energy development. There was one book about nuclear power, which had a long and complicated sub-thesis about how the military industrial complex controlled the country with nuclear energy/weapons as it's core resource. It claimed that this cabal was actually secretly controlled by governemnt insiders (Bechtel which was started by ex-congressmen etc. was one of the largest builders of nuclear power plants.) It claimed that a shadowy company that owned major stakes in practically every major technology, weapons and nuclear utility outfit called Cede & Co. was orchestrating the conduct of the nation. I happened to have a summer job on Wall Street prior to reading this book. We used to have to stamp customer stock certificates with either their name, if they wanted to have the shares they bought mailed to them, or have them lableled in "Street Name" a nominee name so that their shares could be held for them in an account with the depository trust company and they didn't have to put their shares in a safe deposit box, or keep them laying around their houses. The nominee name used by the depository trust co. and shown on the vast majority of stock certificates owned by any stockholder in the world who didn't want to take possession of their stock certificates was.......Cede & Co. Ever since then I have been highly suspect of conspiracy theories promulgated by people with just enough knowledge and IQ points to be dangerous, but very little in the way of critical thinking or research skill. There are a lot of things wrong with our country and financial system and as Tricky Dick Cheney would say "MISTAKES WERE MADE". But the mistakes were made by everyone from irresponsible consumers to legislators, regulators and congressmen who took money from Fan & Fred. This is not all a result of some fiendish plot by JP Morgan (old money) and Goldman Sachs (the Jews) to take over America and fleece the little guy. Their will be severe compromises of the capitalist system, fairness and justice in the attempt to get this unprecedented situation under control. More mistakes will be made and guilty parties (like some of the Wall Street execs) will be overly punished, while other guilty parties (home speculators)may get bailed out and others (rating agencies) may just get forgotten, or it may be too tough to make a case against them. I will resist the urge to pin blame on any single party or weave the entire episode into a grand conspiracy theory, both of which are counter productive. In case anyone hasn't noticed....turns out Nukes have some positive attributes that might have helped us out if we had recognized it earlier.
Posted by jeff | October 19, 2008 10:20 AM
Noah - I normally really appreciate your posts. Honestly, though, this post is kind of silly. I mean, it doesn't even make any sense. All I can get out of it is that the author is saying there is some kind of conspiracy, but I couldn't really explain how exactly he is saying it works or what it is except JPM and GS are evil and taking over the world. If he can't even write in a way that makes sense, not sure why he is worth publishing on your website.
Posted by Eric | October 19, 2008 11:06 AM
Eric - appreciate the comment, but I thought this piece was entertaining, nothing more. I thought I placed enough warnings beforehand.
I just thought it would be an interesting change of pace. I dont do it often!
Posted by Noah | October 19, 2008 11:15 AM
I'll say one thing. CDS and counterparty risk does play a role here. One major reason that BEAR was not allowed to fail, was to avoid the counterparty payouts that would result from a CDS credit event.
So, JPM comes in and buys them backed by the feds. JPM is a huge issuer of CDS, so was AIG. I think we know what happened to them. CDS and the unregulated trades that are out there are outright scary, and every big failing firm needs to see how it will affect the counterparties and if it will disrupt the system. We are very intertwined.
This is not conspiracy, this is FACT! But people think its conspiracy. After JPM bought Bear and saved themselves prob tens of billions in CDS payouts on a Bear credit event, holders of the other side of the trade found themselves holding worthless contracts, and had to unwind. The result was a rally in stocks (short covering winning trades), and a selloff in commodities (unwinding winning commodotiy trades). Look at the charts 7 days after Bear failed, and you will see.
Right now, JPM/BAC are the sharks. I think Citigroup is F**cked! I do buy into the idea that C only was going for Wachovia because they knew there would be a place to offload tons of toxic holdings. It didnt play out that way and in the end, C is in no position to buy anyone. They need to fight for their own survival. I wonder if they will in their current form, because they have about a Trillion in off balance sheet garbage that is not marked to current valuations for toxic securities. If they were, C would need massive capital injections, cut all dividends, issue tons of stock to make up for the shortfall, resulting in likely a major disruption of the entire system, and a crisis of confidence unlike we have seen thus far in our banking system. In short, Citigroup cannot be allowed to fail.
Lehman failed, and the credit even in CDS payouts it sparked affected the system. Imagine if it happens to Citi...I dont want to.
This piece is a paranoid theory, but there is some truths embedded in it, and if we believed what bernanke/paulson/bair are telling us for past 12 months, we truly had our heads in the sand! Clearly they know how bad it is out there, more than we know.
Posted by Noah | October 19, 2008 11:28 AM
for the record, I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS THEORY and posted as entertaining reading. Its easy to come up with theories considering the unprecedented events we face, and connecting the dots using paranoid thoughts of a grand scheme.
We are in this mess for a multitude of reasons:
deregulation, ultra low rates, parablic credit boom, innovation on wall street to disperse/spread risk using complex derivatives, lack of oversight, flawed rating models, rampant speculation of an illiquid asset class, poor decisions by consumers, fraudulent lending, exotic loan products, consumer greed, corporate greed, use of massive leverage, fractional reserve banking, desire to extract home equity for consumption, spending more than you can afford and being allowed to, lending to everyone, and on and on. It was a housing & credit boom that busted together, and the house of cards fell.
I discussed this for years. Lets all just read this piece with a grain of salt please! Clearly it takes some truths and spins a grand conspiracy theory around it thinking its all part of some elaborate plan.
Posted by Noah | October 19, 2008 11:38 AM
Eric: check this out
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apjqJKKQvfDc&refer=home
thoughts?
Posted by Noah | October 19, 2008 12:59 PM
I do not have all the information, that is for sure. I imagine Citi has a bunch of toxic stuff. However, given the enormous role our government is now playing, it is safe to say the banking system is effectively nationalized. They are forcing banks to take equity and issue warrants - if that's not socialist, I don't know what is. Along those lines, I would imagine the government would have blocked Wells Fargo from buying Wachovia if Citi needed it. And I am 99.9% positive that Citi will not fail. In the case that Citi is that underwater, it is just a question of how much we the taxpayer ends up paying to stabilize their balance sheet.
I think the banking/credit mess is about to get a whole let less interesting (I could be way early on this). It seems clear the rules of the game are set now, whereby the government essentially socializes the banking system. Large banks will not fail. As a society, though, we are clearly going to be much more limited in what we consume by a weak job market, huge national deficit, and mounting healthcare and social security costs. We have.
I do not have a strong opinion about what will become of currencies. The U.S. has obviously made huge mistakes, but the EU is equally if not more screwed. I do think the reason the dollar is rallying (at least for now), is when all that matters in currency is relative value, people are realizing the U.S. is not really that worse off than others. Even China, with its increasing health problems and social unrest is going to have a come to Jesus moment of its own.
I'm glad you don't endorse the conspiracy guy. My point in addressing the article was a simple one: a normal education level guy can't really understand what the hell he's talking about. He uses lots of words, and yet if you tried to explain to someone what conspiracy he was talking about, you'd be hard pressed to communicate the details.
As an investor, I think it is an important time as any to be diversified. With many prices having fallen where they are, I think we should all own some gold, other commodities (yes even oil now), stocks, foreign currencies, real estate, some credit, and cash. The world is full of dramatically conflicting forces now - isn't it crazy how some people are worried about deflation now where only 6 months ago it was all about inflation!!). We are all going to have some winners and losers as we work our way through this mess. I think the only way to balance greed and fear today is to have a bit of everything. You might not end up being the richest guy on the block, but you'll also not be the shmuck who got left behind (or the guy waiting for the robin in the springtime).
Posted by Eric | October 19, 2008 1:49 PM
Also Noah - I agree that Bear and other banks were not allowed to fail because of the interparty risks that now exist. I got to hear Bernanke at the NY Economic forum, and he claimed that they would have saved Lehman but didn't have the tools at the time. Whether that is true or making excuses, the Lehman experience shows that indeed large financial institutions cannot be allowed to fail. What that means in turn is that there is going to have to be a whole lot more regulation going forward. It is a sad era for free-market capitalism, but I am still a long-term believer.
Just like we outlaw and regulate monopolies and have to sue Microsoft when they get to powerful, it doesn't mean the end of competition or that our system can't still turn out the huge profit machines of the future (i.e google). It just means we have to balance free enterprise with public protecting rules at the edge. I just pray we find the right balance.
Posted by Eric | October 19, 2008 2:01 PM
Eric,
Love your observations on "relative value" issues of currencies and the issues that Europe and China have. I would add India, Russia and the Mid-East to those with issues. I am not close enough to the current fundamentals of Brazil, but my guess is the busting of the commodity bubble will cause the tide to go out there and we will see how much skinny dipping was going on. While the US GDP benefitted from leveraging up over the last few years and we will give those ill gotten gains back, the same can be said of many others and my guess is that in many ways we had much less mal-investment than many others. We are going to have slower growth rates in the world, which may give us some help on energy and raw materials shortages and global warming. How we do in the next half century will depend on how we address these issue relative to others in the next few years. I also hope we are smart enough to open our gates wide to immigration so that we can cheat the demons of demographics (aging populations) which are about to cream Russia, Europe, Japan and China. If we were smart we would import as many able bodied and minded young people as possible.
Posted by jeff | October 19, 2008 8:27 PM
I think that Upton Sinclair's "The Moneychangers", published in 1908, (http://www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/moneychangers/) should be required reading for anyone looking to draw historical parallels between where we are now and where we have been before. I personally don't think that disaster on a massive scale is intentional per some higher dictate, which is why I don't buy into any particularly nefarious forms of conspiracy theory, however there is no denying that every nation of many is ultimately, no matter what we say or think, controlled by a powerful few. I think we are just seeing history repeat itself once again, albeit at a level of speed and intensity that correlates exactly to the level of speed and intensity with which we now live in the fast paced information age. This may all just be a result of fundamental human nature playing itself out once again on a modern, newly global stage! Man's eternal struggle to balance his own needs with the needs of others, "Part ????????"......
Posted by melanie | October 20, 2008 10:51 AM
Whew, wow Noah this post brought out some interesting comments. I think that Noah never meant for this to be taken as gospel, he posted it for both entertainment purposes and as food for thought. There are a lot of ideas amd possibilities mentioned in the article, some of which may even be true, but to believe that all the dots pointed out can be connected is a stretch. Such a stretch that only a believer in conspiracy theories would actually believe. I don't have a problem with this being posted, on the contrary, it being written gives me better feelings about a bottom, at least a temporary bottom, being in. Of course had it shown up on the cover of Newsweek instead of Urban Digs, I feel more strongly (no offense Noah). Keep posting them Noah, I think we can separate the wheat from the chaff, I think your readers have a bit more saavy than say the readers of curbed or Brownstoner.
Posted by Randy Reis | October 21, 2008 7:19 AM
thanks Randy!! It was exactly that, food for thought and entertaining weekend reading.
Posted by Noah | October 21, 2008 7:48 AM