Tag: Economic Crisis

Nothing Learned In A Decade

A decade ago one of the worse financial crisis hit the world…..a crisis that could have been avoided….a sadly nothing has been learned from this collapse…

Ten years ago this month, the French bank BNP Paribas decided to limit investors’ access to the money they had deposited in three funds. It was the first loud signal of the financial stress that would, a year later, send the global economy into a tailspin. Yet the massive economic and financial dislocations that would come to a boil in late 2008 and continue through early 2009 – which brought the world to the brink of a devastating multi-year depression – took policymakers in advanced economies completely by surprise. They had clearly not paid enough attention to the lessons of crises in the emerging world.

Anyone who has experienced or studied developing-country financial crises will be painfully aware of their defining features. For starters, as the late Rüdiger Dornbusch argued, financial crises can take a long time to develop, but once they erupt, they tend to spread rapidly, widely, violently, and (seemingly) indiscriminately.

Source: The Lost Lesson of the Financial Crisis by Mohamed A. El-Erian – Project Syndicate

With no lesson learned then this will repeat itself…..only a matter of time.

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Pension Panic

Note:  The site where I found this article is a bit of a conspiracy site and I am not sure about the validity of this news but seeing how we all have to retire or die at our desks I thought it would make a good conversation piece.

One sad situation in life is that we will all grow old and have to be put out to pasture (retire)….and the big question is will most Americans have enough cash saved to live a comfortable life?

I was unfortunate enough that hurricane Katrina injured me and I had to retire….but I was employed by the state and had a good retirement plan….sadly those days are slipping away….now employees are forced to “invest” their money and in doing so are at the mercy of the economic system under which we live….

For some the only retirement they have is their Social Security and the way things are going it looks like that will not be there when a person retires.

What is the future of our swindling pensions?

For millions of public sector workers in the U.S., state-run pension funds are the only chance left for a comfortable retirement. In the hopes of providing a stable future for their families, an entire generation was duped into putting decades of their earnings into these supposedly ‘risk-free’ investments. Unfortunately, those who have entrusted the government to manage their life savings may end up destitute as a result.

Budgetary shortfalls that have plagued Detroit for years are now spreading to other municipalities. Since 2008, six local governments have been forced to renegotiate their debts in bankruptcy court, with many others on the same trajectory. The scale of the problem has been repeatedly understated by the media, but across the nation, a somber reality is beginning to set in.

Source: Pension Panic: The Coming Financial Bubble Nobody Is Talking About

It appears that it is only a matter of time before all Americans are suffering from some sort of pension panic.

Will you?

What’s Killing the American Middle Class?

For decades I have been watching the middle class slowly disappear…..for me it was most pronounced with the election of Bill Clinton and the leadership of the DLC……I admit it has been in decline before he was elected but with that election the downward spiral became more pronounced…..NAFTA was a horrible idea for the working class of the US and yet we are doing similar agreements almost every administration……

So the question should be…..What is killing the American middle class?

Richard Eskow: Americans work more hours than citizens of any Western European country, a burden that keeps them away from their families, friends, and personal activities.

A new study by the Pew Research Center spurred a rash of headlines last week about “the dying middle class.” But the word “dying” might be more appropriate if we were watching the regrettable but inevitable effects of natural forces at work. We’re not. We’re seeing the fruits of deliberate action – and sometimes of deliberate inaction – at the highest levels of power.

The great American middle was never large enough, even at its height. It always excluded too many people – sometimes, shamefully, merely for their skin color. And now, instead of growing and becoming more inclusive, it’s fading away instead.

It’s true that the middle class is dying, but not from natural causes. It’s being killed. What – and, for that matter, who – is responsible for its slow death?

Source: What’s Killing the American Middle Class? – LA Progressive

Sadly I do not see the situation improving much no matter who is elected….but as usual we Americans will soldier on and make others rich…..it is the American way.

Why is the global economy suffering so much turbulence?

2016 is an election year so candidates will be making hay with the economic woes of the planet…..China is sliding….US is crumbling……Wall Street is a bouncing ball……..wages suck…..inflation is under control (tell that to someone on a fixed income)……gas prices in a race to the bottom……as soon as the luster moves on from the Muslim theme or the immigrant subject or the refugees…..the economy will make a return to the campaign ads and rhetoric…….

But with the markets playing the rhumba on the bowels of traders…..the question is….does anyone know what the Hell is going on?

A tumbling oil price and see-saw financial markets are clear symptoms of economic instability. But what’s the cause?

Well there is a newspaper trying to help in the understanding of economics of the day……

Source: Why is the global economy suffering so much turbulence? | Business | The Guardian

Can you see it now?

Use Iceland As An Example

Surely everybody remembers the economic crisis of 2008………can you remember all the debate of whether to let the thieving banks to go bust of not?  There was also a debate on whether the CEOs of said banks should be held responsible…….how about the term “too big too fail”?

I have written about what Iceland decided to do in the past……and today it looks like their plan was far superior to any plan we had here in the states……

Maybe we should take a good long look at what Iceland did…….and learn from their example…..

 

Three charts that show Iceland’s economy recovered after it imprisoned bankers and let banks go bust – instead of bailing them out – Business News – Business – The Independent.

Will The Country Suffer Depression?

The markets go up…..the markets go down……a continuous yo-yo ride……

I know….very few Americans want to talk or learned about economics…..it is just all too hard.

We all have a fleeting knowledge of what happened in 1929, right?  But our minds are fresher in the events in 2008 when the markets dropped like a lead toilet in Lake Michigan.

But since that day the markets have steadily gone up and up and up……seemingly without any possibility of a return to the days of losing funds……but is there a possibility that we could see another loss of funds and value………..

A CIA analyst known for his dire economic predictions is speaking up again, warning that the next Great Depression may be right around the corner. Jim Rickards, a “financial threat and asymmetric warfare adviser” for the CIA, tells Money Morning that Americans should be preparing for a $100 trillion financial catastrophe. “Everybody knows we have a dangerous level of debt,” he says. “Everybody knows the Fed has recklessly printed trillions of dollars. … But all signs are now flashing bright red that our chickens are about to come home to roost.” Another reason for gloom: According to Rickards, the so-called Misery Index maintained by the Federal Reserve contains far worse data than most people believe.

The Misery Index adds the true unemployment rate with the true inflation rate, but Rickards contends that the Fed has altered the index’s calculations in order to hide the truth—that “the Misery Index has reached more dangerous levels than we saw prior to the Great Depression,” he says. “This is a signal of a complex system that’s about to collapse.” His prediction? A “70% stock market crash” followed by a 25-year depression, possibly sparked by a “major credit collapse” in China, he tells Reuters. His advice? Invest in “hard assets” like railroads, coal, wheat, or gold. Again, he’s not known for mild predictions:

Whatcha think?  Is this guy onto something or is he just giving Americans what they crave….a good dose of fear?