[-empyre-] On Currencies, Capitalism, and the Fed

[jeff pierce]

Wow, I sure hope you feel better and I'm not about to get into a war of words with you. That will not solve anything. I would like to point out that you don't know me. And for you to call me, wait...let me make sure I quote you accurately...."petty, neo liberal, greedy day trader." I'm not sure why you're so angry with me when I only speak the truth, and I'm sorry if it's hard for you to hear.

 

Fact. 

 

Governments are getting bigger, more powerful and they are involved in just about every aspect of our lives these days. There response to this crises is almost criminal and I used to think they were just stupid and didn't know what they were doing, but the sad reality is they know exactly what they're doing . In reality, the US Government is the biggest ponzi scheme of them all. I guess you wouldn't want to hear my theory of how the government intentionally(or at the very least turned a blind eye) manufactured this decline to keep the baby boomers working, institute an entire new financial system with more control, and move towards a one world cashless monetary system. 

 

It's not even a question that the government is responsible. I'll provide you with exactly how this came to fruition.

 


Easy credit policies from artificially low interest rates from the Federal Reserve fuels massive speculation causing the housing/credit/leverage bubbles. (You think we would have learned from the dot.com crash.)
CRA – Community reinvestment act. – Bush put this policy on steroids when it allowed people to buy a house with no down payment/no credit or other creative type situational loans. – More speculation pushing home ownership to 70(highest ever) and ultimately causing the prices of homes to rise too far too fast. (Many people had no business being put in homes who had no real source of income.)
Mortgage industry went unregulated with creative mortgages (subprime/specialty loans) that were backed by Fannie/Freddie that were guaranteed by the Government. (Did government turn a blind eye to create artificially high growth?
Shadow banking committee – loan securitization. Banks would package loans, sell them to Wall St., who in turn would dice them into mortgage back securities through derivatives. This transferred the risk from the banks to money market loans. More failed credit regulations from the government, and to be honest with you I don’t even really understand all of this.
2004 – SEC - Hank Paulson – Series of laws that enabled investment banks (Bear Sterns/Lehmans) to go from a 12-1 leverage to a 30-1 or 40-1 leverage.

Repeal of Glass-Stegal1 Act
Series of policy mistakes Treasury Dept/Federal Reserve

TARP - Troubled asset relief program
TALF – Term auction liquidity fund.
TLGP - Temporary liquidity guarantee program
AMLF – Asset backed money lending facility 
TSLF – Term securities lending facility
SLF – Special lending facility
PDCF – Primary dealer credit facility
HAM – Homeowners adjustment 
SEC fail to regulate the hedge fund industry properly allowing monsters like Madoff to be born.
Removal of the uptick in 2007 rule was the icing on the cake. Now they’re talking about restoring this rule. (If it was such a good idea to remove it in the first place, why are they now bringing it back.)?
Short-selling ban instituted by government – tried to blame short sellers for the massive declines in financial stocks. (Completely ludicrous concept as shorting provides liquidity) Oh, by the way I just read that the SEC is back to attacking the short sellers again and want to impose new regulations because it's always their fault.
 
 
Government’s Response to Crises
 

Bailouts and Stimulus programs (Lost count of the trillions) 
Lower interest rates to .05%
Partial government nationalization/ownership of:

Insurers – AIG
Banks – C, JPM, MS, BAC
Automotive – Ford, GM
Securitized Mortgages – Fannie/Freddie Mae
If oil was as high as it was last year, I’m positive the Airlines would be inline for the next bailout.
Quantitative easing which is one huge gamble and will likely result in massive inflation and massive debts for generations to come.
US dollar devaluation
 
 
All of this is just off the top of my head. 
 
 
 
Why would I want a war? I want the US to stop policing the world, cut military spending, and recall the troops?
 
Greenspan will go down as one of the worst Fed Chairman ever.
 
A lot of my beliefs are based on the works of Jim Rogers, Ron Paul, and Peter Schiff. If you really want to argue with somebody, give them a call because to be honest with you, they are about the only people out there that make any sense to me. Companies go out of business every year without bailouts. You don't see the family store owner who was put out of business by Walmart getting any government assistance. These bailouts are only rewarding bad behaviour and it's bad business sense as well, and the most important part of it is it's not the governments money to even use in the first place. 
 
You've worn me out and to be honest, I'd rather not hear back from you if you can't be civil, intelligent, and leave the personal attacks out. Go find yourself a different bad guy to vent on. And since your so concerned about the well being of humanity, save the eggs for somebody who needs food.
 
 
peace out
 
 
jeff
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
> Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 00:40:52 +0200
> From: brian.holmes at wanadoo.fr
> To: empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] On Currencies, Capitalism, and the Fed
> 
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 10:26 PM, jeff pierce <zentrader at live.ca> wrote:
> 
> >> I'm so tired of hearing
> >> about "centralized this" and "globalization that" as every time I hear it in
> >> the media I get the feeling that they're just warming us up to what will
> >> eventually be. Governments are too big to begin with, as they are a big part
> >> of this problem. They can't handle their affairs on a national level, what
> >> makes anybody think they can handle the affairs at a world level. The
> >> thought alone makes me shiver. Where would you hide if you didn't like the
> >> system that is in place? 
> 
> Nowhere as far as I can tell. At this point (and for about the last ten 
> years) the same consensus rules the entire Western world. Asia and Latin 
> America are of course different, so try your luck. Maybe you will find a 
> place where entrepreneurs are allowed to commit climate change and 
> foster horrendous social inequality without any oversight. You might be 
> happy there, if you are rich and willing to have armed guards of course.
> 
> >> At one point between
> >> October-December it was so hard to trade and carry any positions over the
> >> weekend because we (traders) feared some type of government intervention
> >> over the weekend which would cause the markets to move in totally random
> >> ways. This is still very much a concern, but it hasn't been as bad as of
> >> late.
> 
> This is really neoliberal bullshit. You think the markets are "free" for 
> your petty day-trading greed? That's foolish. The "big government" you 
> abhor (with the very terms that Reagan, Thatcher & Co. taught you to 
> use) has created the markets that you now complain they are regulating 
> in your disfavor. Under neoliberalism, Big Government and Big Business 
> are one and the same.
> 
> >> This is not a free market system. 
> 
> Of course not. The free market system is historically a failure: it has 
> big crises and starts big wars. Is that what you would like to see now? 
> After Greenspan spent his entire tenure as Federal Reserve chief pumping 
> up the financial markets, only a fool would say this is a "free market." 
> To even use such terms is embarrassing.
> 
> >> Who are the government to decide which
> >> companies are bailed out and which ones aren't.
> 
> And who are you to decide what matters?????? When all that concerns you 
> is how much filthy money you earn?????? I would rather see companies 
> bailed out than entire populations left starving (I refer to companies 
> that actually employ people, not Goldman Sachs etc). I think that 
> regulating the economy is a responsibility of everyone to their fellow 
> human beings. It can be done decently, if people only devote a minimum 
> of care to this most important human task. The kind of government that 
> claimed to be there to get government off our backs has actually brought 
> us to the present situation. Those who use exactly the same language 
> apparently do not have the sensibility to be ashamed all on their 
> lonesome, so it is important to point out that they and the major 
> business interests who invented their ideology have been totally wrong.
> 
> Last time I checked the
> >> survival of the fittest in the business world was the model of choice. If a
> >> company wasn't profitable, then they should fail. End of discussion. Don't
> >> use taxpayers money, print unlawful amounts of money, and destroy the
> >> currency in the process.
> 
> On this logic would you kill your friends when they don't have enough to 
> eat?
> 
> I could comment on the rest of this mail, but the whole thing is so 
> lamentable that I prefer not to. Over the past 30 years, the idea that 
> people should collectively make an effort to ensure that their fellows 
> do not die from "natural selection" aka cutthroat competition has lost 
> a lot of ground, mainly because no one stands up for that simple idea. 
> Well, I do. There is a lot to criticize in governments of all kinds, but 
> to criticize the very existence of government is to buy into exactly the 
> plan that the big oligopolies have pushed through big government over 
> the last thirty years. This plan of so-called "de-regulation" (or 
> really, re-regulation in favor of the rich) has brought the entire world 
> to the brink of disaster and all you people on the list are saying, 
> great conversation, etc. No, it's not a great conversation. It's 
> ignorance repeated and accepted as dogma. Wake up and think about the 
> world thirty years from now, and not thirty seconds from now when your 
> next trade is finished. On the thirty-second line of reasoning, we will 
> all be dead in thirty years, probably due to war over the gross 
> inequalities in the world, and not even to global warning which will be 
> slightly slower. It's not acceptable to go on maintaining in public that 
> your freedom as a small investor is a workable benchmark for the 
> functioning of the global economy. As a small investor you are a 
> privileged pawn, end of story. Telling about the disappointments of your 
> personal greed in public. I don't care to hear about it anymore.
> 
> Wake up and throw eggs, empyreans!
> 
> best, BH
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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