14-Sep-12 World View -- Pan-Arab Nationalism

[John]

14-Sep-12 World View -- Pan-Arab Nationalism brings U.S. Embassies in Mideast under attack

Stocks surge again after Fed announces QE3

** 14-Sep-12 World View -- Pan-Arab Nationalism brings U.S. Embassies in Mideast under attack
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 14#e120914



Contents:
Four protesters killed in clashes at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen
Has the fuse been lit?
The role of blasphemy in jihadist movements
Egypt facing 'million man protest' after Friday prayers
Stocks surge again after Fed announces QE3


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Sanaa, Egypt, Libya,
Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Iraq, Danish cartoons,
Muslim Brotherhood, Salafist Nour party,
Quantitative easing, QE3

[mannfm11]

Can anyone explain to me how the Fed stealing $500 billion in capital from the American economy is going to be good for it?

[vincecate]

Can anyone explain to me how the Fed stealing $500 billion in capital from the American economy is going to be good for it?

Really they are stealing like $1 trillion from the whole world each year. Of this half comes from outside America. The Federal deficit they are really funding is benefiting Americans. So the rest of the world is losing $500 billion per year. As long as the rest of the world goes along with this there is a net win for America. But this will not go on forever. Paying a small inflation tax as protection money was acceptable to most of the world. But this inflation tax is now too heavy. China and Russia have figured out this is bad for them. Other countries will get revolutions because they can not afford such a high inflation tax. It will not end well for America. Once the rest of the world stop accepting dollars for everything this inflation tax will end. Then America will not be able to afford oil or stuff from China. America will become really poor.

http://pair.offshore.ai/38yearcycle/#hyperinflation

[OLD1953]

There are two American economies, and the problem with discussing "the" economy is that people don't usually distinguish between those economies. The first, sometimes called real economy is the economy where manufacturing and distribution takes place. This is the economy of farmers, miners, aluminum mills, power generation and factories and all the other physical apparatus that makes goods and services available to the nation. The second economy does not deal with physical items save as documentation, it is solely focussed on imaginary things which derive their value from something else, and eventually that value comes down to a physical item or structure somewhere. There is no inherent value in a bank statement, it represents physical alteration of the real world (usually called work) by some individual or group of individuals who modified something real to be in accord with the desires of someone who had bank statement tokens representing the value of past alterations which was exchanged for this physical alteration. Thus, the second economy derives all its value from representations of worth of past, present and future alterations of the physical and the expected valuation in the future of such alterations under assumed conditions. This second economy is where insurance, corporate raiders, banks, brokerages for stocks and bonds and futures markets exist. It is much easier to commit fraud in the second economy than in the first economy, because you are dealing with items much harder to quantify in any real sense. This is exactly why Galbraith spoke of that mysterious time in embezzlement when the crime is not yet discovered and both parties have the benefit of the increase.

So your question was badly stated, the correct question would be: "Which economy does this benefit?". And when stated properly it will answer itself.

Reporters showed once again they are interested in nothing but getting the story out as fast as possible and damn the facts. Virtually all the early reporting on the Libya murders was incorrect, especially as involving any official statements.

I have spent a fair bit of time wondering if Democrats were playing rabbit in the briar patch to the Republicans fox over the voting fraud laws. There isn't any doubt that such laws are unnecessary, states require ID before issuing a voter registration card and that should be the end of the matter. In person vote fraud is nearly nonexistent, we've averaged fewer that ten prosecutions for such per year over the last decade. Absentee ballot voting fraud is another issue entirely, there's a LOT of it, and it generally favors Republicans (because of ineligible military ballots) so the rules get very lax for that fraud while it is THOUGHT that in person picture ID laws will favor Republicans, and they are generally cast that way in the news reporting.

I beg to disagree with this assessment, the group without a picture ID does indeed include a number of people too poor to drive, but this group is well known for a nearly zero turnout. A group with a much larger turnout is the elderly, I've seen busses lined up at nursing homes on election day to get the vote out, and they vote heavily Republican. Now we have states pressuring people to surrender their drivers licenses as they get older, and we have these voter ID laws coming in. Seems to me a lot of elderly will be disenfranchised, disadvantaging the Republicans who are supporting the laws, and advantaging the Democrats who oppose them. And here's a lawsuit brought by an actual affected person (not on "behalf of" anyone) in evidence. One of the suits in Pennsylvania was brought by a 93 year old woman who doesn't have a picture ID, and she's certainly in a group whose demographics tend heavily Republican. Just something I've been considering.

The new QE3 doesn't much resemble the old model, there's a big difference between just buying securities or loaning money at low interest and buying loans outright. The FED doubtless is being told "we'd lend money if we didn't need so much capital", doubtless true in some instances, but there's actually plenty of money for loans out there, or so it's been reported. The country simply does not want to purchase much of anything right now, and this isn't going to help anyone with credit history problems or behind on current debts.

Had the original bailout been done differently, the world might be in a different shape, of course the time and the era made logical discussion impossible. Logic says that if MY tax dollars are used to purchase the loan on MY house at 10 cents on the dollar, then the principal should be reduced by 90% and I should be offered first right of refusal on purchasing the mortgatge at that price. Exactly who loses there? The banks get the same deal they got before, the illusion of profit there is cut to what the actual value of the loan was assessed at by the bank who sold it, and why the hell should I be expected to pay these guys a gift of 90%? That makes no damn sense at all, given they are playing with MY money, not their money. And that operation would have stimulated the economy far more than anything that was actually done. (Whether or not economic stimulation is a good or bad thing is a different discussion, I'm talking about what would have improved the tasks that were actually performed.)

And here's something that's also getting very controversial in Israel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/nyreg ... itual.html

I'll let John decide how that one plays into generational theory, it's a hyper ultra conservative Jewish ritual that was not performed save in secret for most of my life. Now it's demanded as a "right". I could say a helluva lot here, but I'm giving this one a pass, mostly becasue of the disgust factor.