Trade and currency wars will exacerbate all tensions in the world leading to greater global conflict – perhaps even a real war. I expect this (perhaps only a vain hope) to be at a low level, but we may see a belligerent move from some countries who feel pressured in this new international game of chicken. . . . → Read More: First slips down the slope…
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The New York Times Dealbook section reports today that the S.E.C. has published it’s rule on Dodd-Frank Whistle blowing. The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory act makes that clear by requiring the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to pay at least 10 percent, and as much as 30 percent, of any monetary penalties more than $1 million to those who provide . . . → Read More: The ethics of the snitch Earlier I had written on the fact that banks may be foreclosing in a manner which will cause problems down the road. Today Reuters published an overview of the suits that banks are starting to disclose. The suits are coming from two directions: Firstly obviously from homeowners… And, secondly from the buyers of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), often big brokerages or banks themselves. . . . → Read More: Foreclosure gate: here come the class-action suits This is a great video by Christopher Whalen on Bloomberg. He is saying some of the things which are going to be working out over the next few years in the slow motion of foreclosures. The knock on effects will work out as a long downward pressure on asset classes, not a single Lehman like event: You guys in in the media have a very tough time. You’re looking for events. You’re trying to cover the news minute by minute. This is cancer. . . . → Read More: Foreclosure-gate is a ‘cancer’ The Fed has announced quantitative easing 2 known by the QE2 moniker. The expectations that this alone can raise the level of economic growth in the US is definitely overstated. The Financial Times however points at two other adverse consequences which may turn up in the next 12 months: …other countries are likely to counter what they view as an unnecessarily disruptive surge . . . → Read More: QE2’s like unintended consequences Simon Johnson suggests in a post Foreign Money, National Security, And The Midterm Elections that there is a equality among nations in their investment strategies, leading the US to gain significant inflows of foreign investment, while US companies invest outside the US. This is a false equality. There are self inflected actions which are changing this drastically against America. The current Administration, despite campaign promises to create a level playing field for Americans to compete internationally, has continued and intensified IRS persecution of overseas Americans and so-called US persons. . . . → Read More: Level Playing Field of Dreams In which David S. Broder suggests it is both politically expedient and economically prudent to foster a war with Iran. I sincerely hope that the war parachute will not need to be used to halt this current free fall. . . . → Read More: War as the solution to our woes Rather than steering towards balmy waters, Captain Bernanke has set course towards the iceberg fields. Full speed ahead! . . . → Read More: QE2: A Titanic loss? In the mid 1970s when the US was the world’s #1 exporter with a positive world trade balance for 95 out of the previous 100 years, Sen. William Proxmire (D,WI), proclaimed that Americans living and working abroad served no useful purpose in creating American jobs by selling American exports. To him they were “…swathed in mink spending their tax evasion dollars at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo” and mounted a campaign to exterminate them by also subjecting US citizens living, working and taxed abroad to the same US taxation on their world-wide income as if they had never left our shores. . . . → Read More: Wake up: Jobs and exports are related to tax policy |
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