First, one tidbit that has to be thrown in here is that TPTB have excelled in creating an illusory situation in which ACTUAL losses of capital are turned magically into collateral. When Lehman went bust, the trifling amount of derivatives they had forced a pic axe to be swung into the 100 gallon fish tank. The financial warlords figured out that there wasn't enough capital in the world to shore up the leveraged losses that the big financial firms were facing and only a fraction of the amount needed to deal with the fake, bogus derivatives. So, the top 5 banks, who hold over 95% of these bogus casino chips (which have precisely ZERO value outside the casino), have created a mutual suicide pact. (Note that this is otherwise known as a oligarchy.) The Federal Reserve, Treasury, etal, have created all manner of magic programs to paper over the massive bad debt these imbeciles piled up while letting small-to-mid sized banks go bust over a multi-year period to help start to clear the bad paper. At this point, the Federal Reserve has a multi-trillion dollar collection of toilet paper on their "balance sheet" and is proceeding to "buy" Treasuries and worthless mortgage backed securities (WMBS) using fictitious funds. This created-out-of-thin-air money is then used by the banks to gamble in the stock market, corner various commodities markets, buy Treasuries that pay interest, "deposit" them with the Federal Reserve as "excess reserves" and the Fed pays even more interest on them. If the .gov tries to reign in the extravagance of the wallpigs, the jig is up and the whole system comes crashing down. So, they get more brazen and collect more and more bogus money all the while our dollar buys less and less.

While it is true that we have a communist in the White House and a number of them in Congress, don't think for an instant that the communists are in charge of the banking system. That system is firmly under the control of the greedy insider Wall Street gang. The way I see this playing out is that the economy will continue to get weaker because all the real capital is being consumed in bul$hit games in and amongst the WS parasites. In the case of the .gov, one of two things will happen, either the Repubs will grow a pair and force the start of spending cuts -or- Odumbo and his band of merry marxists will try to cause a default to screw the banksters and try to wrest control of the money system away from the banksters. An epic struggle will ensue. We won't have to worry about the .gov trying to take our guns if they pi$$ off the banking mafia since $240 trillion of derivatives can buy a lot of real weapons, not just AR-15s. By the same token, if the economy collapses entirely, the banking mafia becomes irrelevant because all their money is digits in an account, which would be worth precisely diddly-squat in the event of the dollar's demise. On the other hand, my assessment of Odumbo and his crew is that they couldn't engineer taking a dump in an outhouse, much less a complex, systematic dismantling of the US economy. They'll do more damage because they're petty, juvenile, neophyte idealogues that have never worked in the real world than on purpose.

An external event, such as the Chinese and Russians teaming up to dump their treasuries in the hope of creating a dollar collapse might happen. The Japanese will eventually collapse since there is no way out for them at this point. When they do, they might take the rest of the world down with them. Note that the Chinese have been importing gold by the boatload. They are positioning themselves to have the world's only major currency to be gold backed. When they arrive at the point they can do that, they -will- dump their holdings en masse to create a flight to THEIR new, gold-back currency and at the same time neuter the US's ability to pay for our influence (and military might) throughout the world.

My prediction is that IF there is going to be an economic collapse, it will happen during Ocommiepinkos term. It is unlikely that there will be another marxist idealogue in the Demoncrat camp the communists could count on (and certainly none of his ilk in the Repubs). As to whether this will happen sooner rather than later, it is difficult to say. This whole debt ceiling thing could be used to precipitate such a cascade failure. By the same token, it would also require the Repubs to have a spine, something they have not shown recently to possess.

It's sad that you have a choice between rooting for something BAD for the US and something MUCH WORSE.

Which is exactly why I support Bush for TARP. We have hit the iceberg, but everyone on the dancefloor is drunk enough not to notice the tilt. Bush merely shut the bulkhead doors, but the inevitable was only delayed.

"It's sad that you have a choice between rooting for something BAD for the US and something MUCH WORSE."


It's even sadder when ~50% on GD can't even understand the difference.

This is one of the few things I FAULT Bush for. If he had forced the bad banks to fail and cleared away all the toxic toilet paper (TTP) as well as outlawed the derivatives, we would not be in the mess we are in currently. The economy WOULD have recovered by now. And, we'd be experiencing actual, sustainable growth. As it is, we've done NOTHING to fix the systemic problems in the financial system, NOTHING to fix the leech-capital problem, and made our national debt problem MUCH worse by trying to use PUBLIC funds to paper over PRIVATE LOSSES!

We definitely hit the iceberg, though. The problem is that the captain and crew have been trying to stuff dollars from the ship's bank into the hole in the side all the while announcing on the PA that warm weather is here and snow cones will be served for dessert as a special treat.

I disagree. The entire system would have collapsed at that point and the ship would have sunk. At least his actions are getting more on the life boats. They have been struggling for some time to keep the dollar as the world's reserve currency as far back as 2003. When he said "We abandoned free market principles to save the Free Market", he wasn't lying.

No, he wasn't lying but he was horribly mis-informed. The entire system would most assuredly NOT have collapsed at that point. At that time, only the largest banks would have failed and would have been put into receivership where they belong. The toxic waste would have been flushed out to sea. Furthermore, the size of the derivative cesspool has only INCREASED since then as has the amount of REAL capital that is sitting in a black hole in these institutions NEVER to come out because it is the only thing propping up their solvency. In addition, the amount of leveraged gambling money and the flash crashes in the market would NOT have been possible since they have all been courtesy of the Too-Big-to-Exist banks that Bush failed to force to live with their pi$$ poor banking decisions.

Also, there would be no struggle to keep the dollar as the world's reserve currency were it not for the (a) profligate spending of the .gov (b) total lack of regulation and integrity in the financial sector.

I wish you were right. I guess that's all I can say.

Edit for Spelling.

I agree that had Bush not given us TARP, most of the financial system would have collapsed.   TARP only delayed the collapsed and magnifies it when it does.  It also delays any recovery since the collapsed has been forestalled.   For me it bought me more time and allowed me to divest myself of some toxic assets (Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac).

Perhaps the biggest thing our nation will lose will be the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.  There was only $800 billion on the books in 2008.  Now there's over $2.5 trillion.  The US will have lost a great advantage.  

Anybody for SDRs?  We peasants can't have them.

Got shiny stuff?

HKSB does to the tune of $876 million dollars worth of that silver.  Link

Commie China has more gold than Germany does.  China wants the yuan to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. link

Despite the fact that I believe gold will fluctuate a great deal in the short term, for those whose objective is long term "savings", I would recommend spending their dollars to buy physical gold, and silver. Do it consistently over time.  I differentiate "savings" and "investing" as this:






















 

Empires do not go quietly into the night.

From what I read, it is more than half way there. China and other aian countries andvRussia and other eastern countries are not using dollars to trade oil as of last summer.

It's official:

This is the Worst Recover Ever.  
(note: red line is "average" with red area showing best and worst recoveries in absolute terms - thus, we are now "worse" than the previously most-worse recovery)


Interestingly, you'd never know it if you follow the markets:  



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-24/its-official-worst-recovery-ever

That is because there is no real growth. All the reported growth is completely due to under calculating the inflation rate. We don't have growth, we have unreported and not adjusted for inflation.

The FED, SEC & Treasury are allowing the Big Banks: Now Even Too Bigger to Fail to Manipulate their Fake Dollars & entice Real Cash back into Circulation.



All in the name of 'Saving' WE the People





No Checks, No Balance, No Constitution = HIGH-TREASON





The Facts have been out for a while now & the 'Bad' has arrived.


Men of 'Nobility' need to Gather & narrate the Facts.



eta







 
 

 

I'm on the verge of being laid off.

Work for a DC area research and development org.

They just laid off 15 people from the support department and shut down a remote site location yesterday. I have been told that my specific work area is overstaffed and that I need to find a project to work on... asap. They didn't mention a timeframe, but I know I only have so much time to find work or else.


My confusion is... If we're running trillion plus deficit…

Where is the money going?

(that is somewhat rhetorical... )

Sigh... back to updating my resume and looking for work.


[edit]

If this is the "You Ain't Seen Bad Yet But It's Comin'- LAST OFFICIAL THREAD" .. will the "You Ain't Seen Bad Yet But It's HERE" thread soon to appear?

Mjollnir, godspeed in your efforts to find new employment.

Folks that have been around here awhile know where I stand in this discourse- check my sigline. I'm 52 years old and can tell you with certainty that THE BAD is upon us and will not relent for at least the duration of my natural life expectancy.


Folks, at this point it is inexorable that it's going to get worse- a lot worse: Don't get caught sleeping on the faultline.

What you're seeing in the above graphs is economic distortion caused by the government, or specifically, one of the distortions produced through central planning. The market is not a perfect gauge of economic health, for many reasons, which I won't get into here.  I believe Keynes's theories don't work.  All Keynes "discovered" is that using economic morphine, mutes the natural feedback loop of the business cycle. If that problem is temporary or minor,pain killers appear to work, by keeping the economy moving.  If however they are systemic, eliminating the feedback loop of "pain" can lead to disastrous results.  This is what has happened.  






 

Yes, we're going to get what we deserve.

Actually, a LOT more of it than anyone imagines.

This is the price for turning a blind eye and being manipulated for 6+ decades of a brilliant Leftist Engineered Destruction of our country.

The destruction continues with the infiltration and compromising of our .mil to move it to the side of the Socialists.

This is obviously a long term plan for us, that has been successfully pulled off, and I don't see it changing.

Generally most everyone lacks the critical thinking skills and the will, to analyze, understand or resist to a significant degree.

The noose is constantly tightening and we haven't done a material thing to stop it. If we have, name it.

The Left pretty much has won, it's only a matter of time now to see the greatest event in the history of the world, watching the people of a once great country commit suicide while blinded by countless infusions of meaningless distractions and collapsed social culture.

Leading to the rise of a Totalitarian rule and consequenses that will make Russia and China pale in comparison.

Couldn’t agree more... well said.

And thanks for pointing out something that hadn't occurred to me. The co-opting of our military.

He said he wanted a civilian military force equal to our military. That didn't pan out, and why dwell on a bad idea. Just increase the influence of “like minded” in the ranks of the current military and they will do your bidding. Oy vey... in the long run, (short to medium term) we're not going to fare well in this, I fear.


Hate to say it... but we need a community organizer.

Without MEANINGFUL PRODUCTION, there is no hope for a country.

This leads to the economic calamity we're watching unfold, with little understanding.

This is what our enemies within want and have designed and that has worked well to bring us to our financial knees.

At the same time they have destroyed our basic culture and political strength, by addicting us to every imaginable feel-good comfort and convenience.

That are wholly unsustainable, but are necessary to achieve the Left's objectives.

Once our country collapses, we will massively trade our freedoms for 'sustenance'/food and a few of the comforts we're accustomed to, that the Left can cheaply provide, as it finally finishes us off and strips of our wealth and life.

The Left is winning the game for the greatest prize in history -tirelessly playing it for keeps while we engage in idiocy.

Step by step.

The movers and shakers of the Left despise us for our beliefs and laugh at us for our gullibility and stupidity.

We're the walking dead and can't begin to figure this out. And don't want to face this reality.

"Hate to say it... but we need a community organizer"


We have them in Drudge, Rush, etc, etc.

Often when those and other's names are mentioned, they are ridiculed, even by us.

We are incredibly naive and stupid.

"And thanks for pointing out something that hadn't occurred to me. The co-opting of our military"


If you think about it, that's the last US institution standing between our freedoms and a Totalitarian .gov.

It's being lost too.

All the rest of our institutions have been throughly co-opted, as you say.

[I've written this many times here and I think you are the first to respond. What does that say to our ability to analyze the issues?]

One reason of millions why they likely have conquered us. All chest-thumping aside.

Now let's have some chest-thumping so we can all feel better.  

Briefly...

Every day we read sad stories of folks losing their jobs, possessions, family and lives.

Because of the lack of economic activity here. Our productivity that was once the envy of the world has been systematically destroyed by our internal Leftist opponents.

They work on every front to destroy us and slit our throats so they can eventually fully control our country. We jump up and down screaming and cheering them on, like the retarded Useful Idiots we are.

We analyze fiscal charts and data of our economy over and over, but don't seem to address or understand the basic motivations of the people and their tools and strategies that they are using to destroy our country.

And THE WHY they are doing this to us.

Yep, we will get what we deserve -in spades!

I truly believe there will be blood in the streets

Sooo, you are coming around.....



Remember abt two years ago on the old thread when I was talking about all this and you asked me, -----'Who are They?"

And I had a dumb answer in response.

Do you know now?

yes.

That makes my day.

Just another cut to our hamstrings in 'their'   ongoing strategy to destroy our economy and our productivity.

We aren't gonna have perfectly clean air and a super duper standard of living at the same time -or for long, just as we can't have our cake and eat it too.

No one has figgered this out yet, and meanwhile, the Left capitalizes on our ignorance to destroy us.

The EPA has been prolly the greatest tool of the Left to destroy our productiveness...

...as the Tee-Vee and media have been to the destruction of our youth and society in general.

The one thing about it is, that when they finally win, it will be a short lived victory. China will be the Big Boy by then.

China has been buying land here in America.  The link suggests they're setting up for business here.  Over twenty years ago we were lamenting that the Arabs were buying up America.

link

Switzerland is close to asking for all 1040 tons of its gold back.

Link

We see where this is going.

 




 

Things are bad when OUR 'Allies' are calling US out.

It seems WE are being set up as the Scape-Goats with Washington leading the charge.

Depressions end for those that win the War...





 

Well, if they ain't playing the right tune, beat them until they do.  

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-25/scam-complete-us-government-takes-page-diocletian%E2%80%99s-book

Things are warming up. Not going to repeat details, Drudge has effectively summarized today's developments by providing links.

R. Emanual is pressuring 2 major banks to discriminate financially against gun and related equip companies.

All this can be expected to expand as the ongoing destruction of [fill in the blank] proceeds in the Left's tireless quest to steal our country.

Also, he has a link that has quotes by the Communist Party of America and their positions, ---it's important that folks read it.

Pretty horrible to think that these folks will NEVER quit til they win.

[All chest-thumping blowhards notwithstanding]

For the lazy:  http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/01/25/emanuel-to-banks-stop-supporting-gun-makers/

 

yeup.

 

The dollar is backed with carrier groups and nukes, almost as good as gold.
Interesting times for sure

Oh, it reeks.

 

Stolen from another thread:



Source (with links to FedGov data):
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=317292


And another read on CPI and how housing is weighted at 40+% of inflation calculations (helping to mask the numbers and increase in SS benefit payouts).   IIRC the methodology change under Clinton would have further doubled the amount each SS recipient currently receives...  talk about mandatory spending.  
Seeking Alpha

Geithner's Legacy: The "0.2%" Hold $7.8 Trillion, Or 69% Of All Assets; And $212 Trillion Of Derivative Liabilities



 

We're No. 1!  We're No. 1! We're No. 1!  

Oh wait.

Now project all this forward a few more years at an increasingly deteriorating rate, and where does this take us?

And what will our enemies within do to capitalize on it every way they can???

How many ways can they capitalize on it?

What's the outcome?

We're watching the lid of our coffin being set on our country and the nailing hasn't quite started yet.

80 to 90 percent of the country are helping hold it.

I think the correct term is "oligarchy". However, these numbers have to be taken in context. First, the reason that the top 5 have virtually all of the derivative exposure is because they deliberately sold that BS paper TO THEMSELVES! The main reason being they could collectively create a mutual suicide pact and hold the .gov hostage by creating a <group> of banks who were "too big to fail", not just individual institutions.

Second, the notion that the top 12 control almost 70% of the financial assets is somewhat misleading. Why? Because these banks get to mark those "assets" with whatever "value" they so choose, irrespective of whether they are, in actuality, toilet paper. Consider the number of HELOCs and 2nd/3rd mortgages there are amongst these banks. Now consider that almost 12% of <ALL> first mortgages are delinquent. What value does HELOCs, 2nd/3rd/etc. mortgages have when the primary is delinquent (or even under water)? Precisely ZERO. Yet, each of these large institutions have billions in secondary loan products marked at 100% of their face value. Also, remember that many of these large institutions have "reserves" that consist of ones and zeros that the Fed conjured into existence. There is no REAL money or tangible assets behind these fictitious creations. Even worse, a sizable percentage of these "assets" are derivative and/or mutual funds that basically can't have money taken out of them without collapsing the fund's value to zero. What is the "value" of something you can't turn into cash without destroying it's "value"?

Leverage is a powerful tool that cuts both directions. That's one thing that always gets left out of these computations of solvency. Just as banks make multiples of money when "financial assets" are increasing in price, so do they lose multiples of money on the way down. Consider what AAPL's decline has done to all the levered up traders and hedge funds (of which there are over 200). Now multiply that by two orders of magnitude in the event of a financial black swan and you see that all these "financial assets" are wisps of smoke which can be blown away with the slightest of winds.

A house of cards is fragile indeed. The question is will we know when the key card gets flicked out from the base? (beforehand, I mean)

ETA: speeling errer agin.

Damn these Leftist, Marxist, Commuhnist conspirators!!!