Cerberus (Greek: Kérberos) is the name given to the entity which, in Greek and Roman mythology, is a multi-headed dog which guards the gates of Hades, to prevent those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping.
This giving billions to Hedge Funds confirms the U.S. and Global CBs are going to print paper at a rate NEVER equalled by a wide wide margin in history. New Deal?? New Deal compared to now was veritably Scroogian. As a month or so ago per capita owned for National Debt was 4,000 dollars(and ESCALATING rapidly, some place it at 10 thousand per person, while during the New Deal it was, corrected for inflation, but 500 dollars.)
i hope people are realize National Socialism's acronym in Germany was NAZI. Giving money to Hedge Funds is classic National Socialism, the totalitarioan right to use all tax dollars from the public in WHATEVER way they wished, such as investing in anything they wished.
Marc Faber estimates that 100 trillion dollars in assets as VAPORIZED world wide--GONE, poof!
And it seems the world is going to print 100 Trillion "dollars" of 100% pure paper to replace with nothing that which vaporized.
And the U.S. has as it only real collateral, is its taxpayers. Marc Faber has stated he is certain the U.S. is , in time, headed to Bankruptcy.A hard lesson will be learned, that printing paper doesn't pay debt.
Jim Rogers is now living in Singapore so his to young daughters can become asianized and be fluent in Mandarin.
Enuff said. Max
********************************************************** December 10, 2008
The Real Cost of the 2008 Recession by Olivier Garret
http://www.safehaven.com/showarticle.cfm?id=12053&pv=1 *********************************************************** Get down to it Communism and Fascism are but nuances from being the same thing, "a small group of people use the power of the state to control the majority. Whether corporations or the state "own" the means of production is a matter of semantics (eg, when the government and big corporations become indistinguishable)."(in quotes written by calgarydude)
and this from RobinPlunder "It seems like based on the discussions on this list, and on similar sites such as financial sense, that the economic principle guiding public action should be: bailouts make the problem worse, not better, and in fact, the bailouts are in large part the principle cause of our dilemma. So, it always puzzles me to see people here, and also on financial sense, then advocate the use of bailouts.
Seems like FASCISM is FASCISM, whether we are bailing out banks or production enterprises..ie, FASCISM is a linkage between state and business, for the furtherance of the interests of the state.
this seems quite different from the founding principles of the US, ie, the purpose of the state is to protect life, liberty and property...and not to foster growth in power of the state at the expense of the life, liberty and property of its citizens.
Excerpts From Gregory Spear, 12/19 www.spearreport.com
"This week we offer a simple parable on economic ecology to illustrate our predicament and our possibilities. Whether or not we are gifted with a Santa Claus rally should really be the least of our concerns, given that we are now experiencing the first synchronized hard landing and bear market in a truly globalized world.
Although the Federal Reserve is inflating its balance sheet to compensate for the severe deflationary forces that have been let loose on the planet, the Fed will not disclose the details of the loans. That is a red flag these days, when it seems there are so many lessons to be learned about accountability, transparency and life in balance. We think it makes sense to prepare for a series of aftershocks in 2009 as the Emerging Markets crack and then heal in a process that will take the global economy to the edge of chaos, and then, hopefully, to a new and better level of organization.........................................
The Greatest HoneyFest of All Time(edit:from the Gregory,s parable of the Bear and The Honey.max)
During the last bear market, when the love affair with tech and the Internet was unraveling, most townspeople simply ran into the woods and wanted nothing to do with the bear or honey (tech) thereafter. When tech bottomed and dot coms evaporated, professional investors simply looked for another vehicle to carry and amplify the speculative energy. With interest rates falling to post-WWII lows, the catalyst for a credit bubble was in place.
This time the bubblemeisters harnessed a bull market in a different asset class (real estate) and figured out a way to get it to inflate the financial sector using derivatives blessed by ratings agencies that were, coincidentally, paid for their ratings by the firms whose instruments they were rating. They then peddled these instruments to yield-hungry institutions, investors and hedge funds. Approximately $3.2 trillion of subprime loans were repackaged and sold in this manner, inflating balance sheets all over the world in the most marvelous honeyfest of all time. Stock markets, real estate and the derivative markets were all golden simultaneously. To most participants, it felt like a natural aspect of a general growth in prosperity................
Has the Fed itself already been inflated to bubble status? If not, what would define a Fed bubble? That is a question worth asking, because there is no fixed limit on the size of the Fed's balance sheet.
Unfortunately, the Fed has maintained a veil of secrecy around its lending practices. It is been silent about who it has lent to and what collateral it has taken as security for its loans. The Fed claims to be concerned that institutions might be "stigmatized" if they were identified. That's one possible reason, but one wonders which financial institutions are left today that are not already stigmatized and what interest it is of the Fed to protect private capital from deserved stigma anyway?
The opaqueness of the lending process invites scrutiny, and leaves us worrying that favors, personal relationships and even private interests may have more to do with who has received this first massive infusion of cash than merit or necessity. Like Dick Cheney's former firm receiving billions of dollars in no-bid contracts in Iraq, we must wonder if the lack of transparency in this lending process is a mask for legalized corruption rather than a sincere effort to protect the public from information which it is allegedly not capable of understanding, and to which it is allegedly not entitled. We do know, for instance, that the finance arm of General Motors (GMAC) was granted access to the Fed's commercial paper facility in October and GMAC's paper (debt) was given a top rating even though the company itself was rated 11 levels below investment grade by Moody's! We argue that lack of transparency in the bailout effort undermines the very confidence that the bailout is designed, supposedly, to stimulate.
Bloomberg has sued the Fed for the details of these loans, arguing that transparency is necessary in the process of deleveraging in an accountable manner. Bloomberg is also concerned that the Fed is content to use the same ratings agencies (S&P and Moody's) to rate the credit worthiness of the borrowing institutions and their collateral as rated all the subprime securities. So far, the ratings agencies have received slaps on the wrist for their collusive behavior, which was a necessary contributor to the formation of any credit bubble...............
The Fed is inflating itself to counteract deflationary forces in the U.S. economy. With crude oil at $36/bbl yesterday (12/18), it is apparent that the deflationary forces are global and the Fed cannot successfully act alone. This is not your ordinary recession or your ordinary bear market. Something very different is going on. Something very big is losing altitude at a very rapid rate. We titled a recent TSR weekly "50% Off," and it wasn't only about discounts at department stores or in the U.S. equity indices. Those involved in the credit markets have a new expression: "50 is the new par," which means that most debt is selling for 50% of face value. The phenomenon is becoming pervasive.........
Edge Of Chaos
Globalization was the single most important investment theme over the last six years. What is different now is that this is the first truly synchronized global bear market. Although the world as a whole suffered in the 1930's along with the U.S., the degree of globalization and financial interdependence was significantly less than today. After 5-7 years of massive economic stimulus from banks around the world who were eager to lend to almost anyone, emerging markets are going on a very low-calorie credit diet, along with the U.S. and Europe.
This contractive process has only just begun in places like China, which were humming along quite nicely before Black October. Although Emerging cultures are leaner and live closer to the economic ground floor, as it were, the shock to their systems is going to be huge because they lack the infrastructure to cushion the blow.
What this means is that the global shockwaves triggered by the credit collapse in the West and the retrenchment of the U.S. consumer are going to repeatedly rebound from country to country, from region to region, from continent to continent until the energy is fully absorbed and dissipated. We can expect shocks followed by aftershocks.
Complex adaptive systems (CAS) evolve by going to the "edge of chaos" and reorganizing. We expect the global financial system to experience a series of edge-of-chaos events over the next 12-18 months as this important corrective process completes. In our view, being forced to that painful edge is the only way people really learn their hard lessons and embrace change. Like a lying addict who must hit bottom to begin true rehabilitation, a global financial system rooted in greed and corruption that has successfully masked itself as "free market ideology" must bring the world to the edge of chaos before it will be required to embrace the rules of civilization.."
Excerpts from The Spear Report www,spearrepot.com.
Where in the hell is all the paper coming from to print all this money???? Are there actually that many forests still available or is it recycling that allows it? Would seem they would have run out of trees by now : )
Wanted to mention that I for one appreciate all your postings basserdan.. keep on sharing... thanks!
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