Financial topics

[aedens]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/b ... 54404.html

or

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-0 ... -recession

= the looting will continue, as another friend like the summer rain got washed away.

That had to be a serious red-pill moment for that person, if nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K21sZmXWD7g

What they told you was never the intent that was said.

[John]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-0 ... -recession

What's most interesting about that article are some of the comments:

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:01 | 6053912 Haus-Targaryen

On an aside -- I had to do a report on a couple asset classes in the
States over the past few months. I submitted it to my boss in the
States on Wednesday of last week. I laid out essentially and
irrefutiably why the asset classes are horribly over-valued, most of
the barometers used to measure their value are horribly bastardized,
and why we should avoid them like the plague.

My boss sent me an email Thursday in the US around noon EST -- where
he said he did not appreciate me injecting my opinions into the report
and I should try again without a biased approach. As an example, he
said I should take out the labor force participation rate as it is a
biased barometer and should use Federal Unemployment numbers
exclusivly. He said I should quit comparing the CPI to vairous food,
energy,education and medical care price indexes, as it presents an
unfair picuture of the USD's purchasing power of these assets and
should focus on the CPI instead. He said the Baltic dry index is
irrelevant and our clients care more about equity performances, and I
should take out the BDI.

Essentially he wants to lie through my teeth to these people. I don't
know what to do, except know for a fact that, given this guy is one of
the top 5 at a firm literally everyone on here knows -- and he is
considered to be a genious in his field -- we are all beyond fucked.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:11 | 6053919 SWCroaker

Haus, my suggestion: get over it, learn to lie. Just don't ever start
believing your own lies.

Surviving in a f'ed up situation sometimes puts the positive aspect of
retaining your head above those accrued from a moral fight against the
system. Look in history to the example of Sophie Scholl, who (in my
armchair quarterback opinion) gave her life in protest, and thereby
removed herself from the scene for what could have been 70 years of
highly successful subversion and rebellion.

Spitting into the wind isn't all that noble in the end.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:23 | 6053941 Haus-Targaryen

This is essentially what I am doing.

"Yeup, MBS are a great and safe buy. Seriously. Its different this
time."

I am documenting this via emails to myself. Noting what egregious
bullshit it is, and how I am being forced to do this and by who. No
one will hang this around my neck when this whole thing burns to the
ground again.

But I guess I gotta keep doing this kinda crap until I can start
making some decisions around here -- assuming we survive the next
"correction" -- which I am not sure of.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:28 | 6053950 Skateboarder

Hang in there Haus, and give 'em what they want - you don't need to
feel bad. It's all lies in the end anyway. Stay true in your heart,
and live for the remaining righteous things in life. In the days of
manufactured existence, righteousness is you producing
'unmanufactured' output. Always important to remember that job =/=
work. Your work is what defines your contribution and connection to
the universe, and it can be entirely within your head.


*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:13 | 6053925 DontGive

Is this a joke? If not, my 2cents:

Keep the original report. Record/note anything he says about it.

When the shit hits the shit, pull out your notes and burry that
mothercuntfucker. That is if you still have your job. Then take his
job.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:26 | 6053944 Haus-Targaryen

Not a joke. 100% serious.

You and I were sharing a brain waive length on that one. See my
response above.


*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:34 | 6053956 GRDguy

Haus-Targaryen: Yu'all in good company.

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the
greatest liars; the men [and women] they detest most violently are
those who try to tell them the truth." H.L. Mencken (1880 – 1956)

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:34 | 6053962 corporatewhore

whistleblowers and corporate truth sayers aren't held in high regard
in the corporate world. Save your ammo just to protect yourself.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:24 | 6053943 daveO

If your name's gonna be on it, think about this;

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/b ... 54404.html

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:28 | 6053949 Haus-Targaryen

Yeah I know. With good enough documentation, I'll be okay.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:31 | 6053954 daveO

And guess his tribal affiliation.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:26 | 6053945 besnook

quit and go independent. the lack of money is more than made up in
freedom from loads and loads of bs from other people and you choose
the people you want to work with.

having your fairytale bubble burst by reality is always a life
changing moment. you either accept your slavery or decide to fight for
your freedom.

i have been free for almost 40 years now(if you don't count
wives). and i managed to accumulate a nice nest egg all without
qualifying for ss bennefits.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:33 | 6053959 Haus-Targaryen

I am stacking like a motherfucker right now to do exactly that. Right
now my stack isn't enough to do much of anything with. I could
probably get myself a used VW CC -- but thats about it.

However, after we have one bank failure somewhere in the West that is
material, and too large for the state backed insurance company to deal
with it -- demand for AG and AU will skyrocket & I'll swap this into
RE.

I want to use the knowledge I have to make me rich, not other people.
Starting right now -- I tihnk is suicidal. I expect to be laid-off
within the next few years, so I am doing what I can while I can, and
attempt to get on my own in the bottom of the next crash.

*** Sat, 05/02/2015 - 14:33 | 6053958 corporatewhore

if the emperor wants no clothes who am i to deny such a
request?

This guy Haus-Targaryen writes, "Yeah I know. With good enough
documentation, I'll be okay." This is very naïve. The comments make
it very clear that Gen-Xers do not value the truth, and I know from
painful experience that if you can document the truth, then the
Gen-Xers will really screw you. This guy had better keep his mouth
shut and do what he's told, or he's going to be spending his days
writing a blog.

[gerald]

john --

"This guy Haus-Targaryen writes, "Yeah I know. With good enough
documentation, I'll be okay." This is very naïve. The comments make
it very clear that Gen-Xers do not value the truth, and I know from
painful experience that if you can document the truth, then the
Gen-Xers will really screw you. This guy had better keep his mouth
shut and do what he's told, or he's going to be spending his days
writing a blog."

Are you talking about yourself ?--- you don't have to answer.

I spent my first 7 years after graduating in corporate, leaving was a hard move to make, took a while to readjust - but glad I did.

cheers

[John]

Higgie, I notice that you deleted your posting with the
Dennis Meadows lecture.

https://vimeo.com/106911442

I assume that you did so because as you listened to the lecture, you
realized how idiotic it was. But since I suffered through 37 minutes
of it and took some notes, I'm going to inflict my notes on you
anyway.

I never thought much of the "Limits of growth" theory when it came out
in the 1970s, and I'm astounded that this guy is defending the same
theory today.

I made a list of some of the things he's predicting: He says that if
we continue on as before, then economic growth will come to a halt,
energy and resource costs will go up, growing debt, climate change,
dependency ratio: # of old people who have to be supported by working
people will go up, the labor force / population will go down, and so
GNP will go down, and so we have to change our social welfare
policies. He sounded like he was proposing "from each according to
his abilities, to each according to his needs."

He suggests several social welfare policies: Encourage women to have
more babies; increase immigration. Or, if the population stops
growing, then wonderful things happen, such as not needing a lot
of new houses. This is really moronic stuff.

To say that he has no grasp of generational concepts would be an
understatement. He talks about the last century without mentioning
the world wars or the Great Depression, as if they never happened and
could never happen again.

But this statement really stopped me:

"After a period of centuries with very little debt, suddenly there's
been an explosion, with the result that many nations are not going to
pay back their debt."

He showed an exponential growth graph of historical debt levels, and
he said there's been no debt in the past. At this point, I can't
figure out if he's really dumb, or if he's simply lying, which is the
norm for today. Any exponential growth curve is going to look flat in
the past, which is why you have to display exponential values on a
logarithmic scale, which would show, of course, that there's been
plenty of debt in the past. Does this idiot really know absolutely
nothing about the 1930s?

I had to shut it off after 37 minutes. I couldn't stand it any more.

[Higgenbotham]

Higgie, I notice that you deleted your posting with the
Dennis Meadows lecture.

https://vimeo.com/106911442

I assume that you did so because as you listened to the lecture, you
realized how idiotic it was.

Yes, that's right. I was taking notes as I went along and posting them but once he got through the introductory stuff I stopped.

He could have tied the debt levels in with his own theory. If the system is bumping up against limits to growth he could have talked about the fact that corporations lost huge sums of money on net in the fourth quarter of 2008 when the financial crisis erupted. Transnational coporations need a positive growth backdrop in order to operate profitably, or they need a corrupt political structure to make a money grab to stay afloat. When growth stopped in 2008, trillions of debt were added via a corrupt money grab to keep the system afloat.

I didn't get to the part where he talked about immigration and increasing the birth rate. In a shrinking economy that would only make things worse. Having social welfare programs when the economy is growing only means more people die when it contracts. It's not really worth talking about how to change social welfare programs in a contracting economy - state social welfare programs will cease to exist because there are no spare resources and states go bankrupt. Who is going to turn the water back on for tens of thousands of people in Detroit and eventually all over the country? Nobody.

Also, if the economy goes into contraction, resource costs don't necessarily go up. More likely they go down because the resources being diverted (or stolen) to prop up bankrupt corporations impoverish the population to the point where economies of scale can no longer operate and production and prices crash. I know of recent college graduates who don't own automobiles. Thirty years ago that was unheard of. They will probably never own automobiles. The money that was handed to General Motors and other bankrupt corporations to keep them afloat has impoverished the citizenry to the point where they are or will be unable to buy the products of the bankrupt corporations who in turn have bankrupted them.

A system dynamics expert should explain why these kinds of things are happening and offer some new insights but he didn't do it.

[gerald]

John & Higbotham --- regarding limits of growth, basically there are none. But growth is limited by knowledge ( which includes scientific) and societal structure ( which includes political and religious - belief systems ). Examples of previous potential limits, whale oil for light, trees for fuel, and the sound barrier for speed. These proved not to be limits at all. Limits are generally self imposed by lack of knowledge and existing societal structure.

[Higgenbotham]

John & Higbotham --- regarding limits of growth, basically there are none. But growth is limited by knowledge ( which includes scientific) and societal structure ( which includes political and religious - belief systems ). Examples of previous potential limits, whale oil for light, trees for fuel, and the sound barrier for speed. These proved not to be limits at all. Limits are generally self imposed by lack of knowledge and existing societal structure.

If there were no limits to growth the earth would be covered with a layer of cockroaches, or take your pick of species. Flies or rabbits or bacteria would be good choices as they also multiply quickly. Could you say that the fact that the earth (and solar system) isn't blanketed with cockroaches is due to lack of knowledge of the cockroaches?

[John]

John & Higbotham --- regarding limits of growth, basically there are none. But growth is limited by knowledge ( which includes scientific) and societal structure ( which includes political and religious - belief systems ). Examples of previous potential limits, whale oil for light, trees for fuel, and the sound barrier for speed. These proved not to be limits at all. Limits are generally self imposed by lack of knowledge and existing societal structure.

If there were no limits to growth the earth would be covered with a layer of cockroaches, or take your pick of species. Flies or rabbits or bacteria would be good choices as they also multiply quickly. Could you say that the fact that the earth (and solar system) isn't blanketed with cockroaches is due to lack of knowledge of the cockroaches?

This is news to me. I thought that the world WAS blanketed with cockroaches.

[Higgenbotham]

My opinion for a long time has been that species like cockroaches and rodents are far smarter than humans from a survival standpoint.

Humans often talk about how they have this thing called knowledge or various aids they have to increase their intelligence like written records and computers and leadership structures. Anything like that, humans use to create eventual disaster. It's literally a miracle there hasn't been a nuclear war. Humans will stand behind individuals Stalin and Obama for example who embody the worst characteristics of the human species.

I believe cockroaches will be on this earth long after humans have exterminated themselves. If you objectively watch humans, they are programmed, just with programming that is inferior to that of cockroaches, ants, etc., from a survival standpoint. When I fly over major cities, to me they resemble anthills. There is very little thinking or intelligence involved beyond that of genetic programming. When there is, the significant result is to create something that will eventually be lethal and creates more useless human drama, like various kinds of weapons or waste.

Humans somehow think they are "special". To me, they are only "special" in the fact that they find unique ways to lessen their survival advantage vis a vis the supposedly less intelligent species.

Here it says cockroaches can live without their heads for a month:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... earth.html

If humans could figure out how to live without their heads they might have a better chance.

[Higgenbotham]

This is news to me. I thought that the world WAS blanketed with cockroaches.

John, we just need more low income apartments.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid= ... 4201&hl=en

Dr. Richard Patterson said the cockroach survey, the largest ever conducted by the US Department of Agriculture, concluded that 18,000 to 40,000 cockroaches live in the average low income apartment.

"That is a conservative estimate," Dr. Patterson said in an interview.