Filed under: economy | Tags: bush, canadian economy, financial crisis, flaherty, hank paulson, harper, plunge protection team, stock market, subprime credit crisis, U.S. economy
Yeah… it can…
I’m not a sophisticated investor and I certainly don’t fancy myself to be a financial analyst, but… here’s my arguement for the “economic crisis” in the U.S. washing up on Canadian shores despite Harper and Flaherty’s best attempts to say that “we’re safe”.
- Take a peek at the performance of the TSX yesterday… a record all-time loss… the TSX is a Canadian stock exchange that’s heavy on commodities… yeah, that’s right… all of those natural resources that make “the fundamentals of our economy” strong (so they say…) The U.S. Congress acts… Canada reacts immediately…
- If the American taxpayer is essentially “out of money” (meaning: credit)… how’re they gonna buy the stuff that we sell? If our #1 consumer can no longer tap into the equity of their homes (if they’re lucky enough to still have one), how can we expect them to keep on buying shit they don’t need with money they don’t have?
- There’s a bit of truth to the idea that Canadian banks won’t get hit as hard as banks in the U.S., but don’t think for a moment that we won’t get hit at all. Sure, they have more banks (more small, “Mom & Pop” types of banks)… but the banks that have been “going down” are large banks. Really big banks. Meaning – Canadian banks are tied up financially with them. It’s inevitable. If you were really able to see what your pension/RRSP etc. was invested in, you’d probably start to understand quickly just how inextricably linked we all are to the U.S. economy.
- Global markets and economies are being hit big time by all of this action in the U.S. Ireland has just gone into recession. The U.K. is nationalizing their banks quicker than the U.S. Iceland is nationalizing too! Markets in Asia are collapsing… how can Canada *not* be affected?
All things considered…
On paper, it’s a good thing that the $700-billion “bail-out” package didn’t pass through Congress. Why? Because it’s an act of Socialism in a Capitalist economy. But…
It ain’t over ’til it’s over…
This is the exact same Bush Administration that brought you an illegal and widely unpopular war. The same people that lie about *everything* and do whatever they please.
I’ll make a bet with you right now…
The U.S. economy will get some form of bailout that looks an awful lot like this massive bailout. Bush will address the Nation/World this morning and lie to us again and somehow his people will pull-off the incredible looting of the U.S. taxpayer… somehow… they’ve got “gumption”, y’know…
What you need to know about a “bail-out”…
Two things:
- A bail-out does *not* help the tax-payer. It puts them in the very position that the banks want out of. A “bail-out” should be seen as “bailing” on the U.S. citizen. Don’t confuse this with “assistance”.
- The government/banks want the U.S. taxpayer to buy up toxic debt. They want the tax-payer to buy shit that no-one, and I mean *no-one* in the financial world wants to touch with a ten-foot pole… does this make sense to you?
“Hey… this shit is toxic and worthless… you should buy it…”
Filed under: disinfo reporting, economy, peak oil, real estate, subprime credit crisis, tv | Tags: american dollar, bank bailouts, bear stearns, economy, fannie mae, freddie mac, gas prices, hank paulson, hurricane ike, lehman brothers, new world order, sarah palin, subprime credit crisis
“I believe that there’s a plan for this world” - Sarah Palin
Now, you know…
…if *I* said that *I* believed that there was “a plan for this world”, y’all’d think I was crazy and assume that I was talking about some kinda New World Order bullshit, right?… right??
Well, I’m not gonna to talk about any Novus Ordo Seclorum bullshit…
I’m gonna talk about bank bailouts and why “day” is now “night”…
Oh, we got trouble, right here in River City. And that starts with “T” and that rhymes with “B” and that stands for “bailout”. Bank bailouts. Meaning: banks are getting bailed out by the government. The government only has one *real* source of cash… and that source is… you.
And by “you” I mean…
YOU! The tax-payer. HOLD ON! I just wrote the word “tax-payer” and I could feel you itching to click your mouse, but hear me out…
I’m specifically referring to the American tax-payer, (you know, the one that buys everything that makes the economy turn ’round?). The American tax-payer is so incredibly indebted to the rest of the world in purely financial terms, there’s really no mathematical way around the fact that North Americans spend more than they make. You don’t need to understand the intricacies of the “subprime credit crisis” to understand that, statistically speaking, we’re all in a heap o’ shit.
If you work any amount of time in your day in order to pay off debt, you may want to put down the remote and think about “your” cash for a moment…
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros., Bear Stearns… those are just the big names… these are the banks that are getting direct government intervention with money that you have to sign on the dotted line for agreeing to “cover” or “pay” (in the form of tax), every April. You are your government’s “guarantee” to its “creditors” (i.e. – China) that your country can pay off its debt. With this in mind… how’s your job going? Are you getting ahead or falling behind?
“So What? I’m not American! HA!”
Yes, you are. At least… your bank account is. And at the end of the day… that’s *you*, Baby… that’s your own personal treasure chest and the *only* thing that really matters to the bean-counters in the Treasury Department. You buy stuff, you borrow to get it, you need it, you want it… they know that…(and by “they”, I mean Hank Paulson, Darth Cheney, Ben Bernanke and a host of other people you’ll never remember the names of). We’re all inextricably financially linked to the U.S. Dollar, and I’m gonna presume that if you’ve read this far, you’re willing to at least entertain the idea that my arguement may have a bit of substance to it.
Back to the plan…
Sarah Palin firmly believes that there’s a “plan” for the world and that it’s “God’s plan”. Of course, her critics (including me), roll their collective eyes at the Christian Republican Fundamentalist world view, but what if there really *was* a plan? What if she was *right* about there being a plan, but was wrong about “what” or “who” was doing the planning? Before you start looking at the picture of The Great Seal on the American Dollar bill that sits above these words and start thinking that I’m going off on a “9/11 Truth” tantrum…
Have you seen a gas pump today?!… Have you?!…
I can’t say that I know of any plan specifically (if I did, I’d be sitting in a boardroom, not blogging), *but* it does occur to me that when you have the price of oil dropping significantly, and the price of gas *rising* significantly, you have at least *one* plan in place that is of great benefit to those making money on the whole deal.
To be sure, the current price spike is being attributed to Hurricane “Certain Death” Ike, (Category 2), and the havoc that we’re all *assuming* it’s going to wreak on oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Now… I don’t know how much of our gas is refined from Gulf of Mexico oil, but considering the fact that we’re (Canada) a net *producer* of oil (and the U.S. is a net *importer* of oil), I’m still unclear as to how gasoline gets to this crazy price in this free-market capitalist society….
Wait a second…
Maybe the “plan” isn’t really “capitalist” or “free-market” at all… maybe (as evidenced by the nationalization of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac), just maybe… we’re living in a perverted scheme of “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor”. The bank CEO’s fuck up; taxpayers pay up. Call *that* a conspiracy theory…
A strong dollar??
We’ve been living in this mental bubble in Canada that we have a “strong dollar”. Even with the CA$ currently around $0.92 against the US$, we Canadians still believe that we have a dollar that is strong… I’m putting the question out there… “how can it be *strong* when it’s being measured against a volatile and weakening currency”?
How can your dollar be *strong* when it purchases less and less and less every day??
How can a dollar be considered *strong* when – overnight – you need *more* of them to buy the exact same stuff that you bought only yesterday??
Like I said… I don’t *know* what the “plan” is exactly… but I’m not gonna bother pretending that Sarah Palin actually has her “finger on the pulse”.
Way back during the WGA strike, I wrote a post saying,
the real crisis with this strike is the fact that the writer’s issues are but a microcosm of what is *really* happening in the world today. The writer’s are you and me for one reason only:
THEY’RE BROKE AFTER TWO WEEKS!!!!They are more than likely in the vast majority (meaning: how many of us are in the same boat?), and that’s the real wake-up call.
Forget not being able to watch a favorite TV show. How shallow is that? TV? What about not being able to “get by” after only a mere two weeks of being on strike. Writer’s are the middle-class of Hollywood. They make middle-class money. They’re broke after two weeks off the job.
Holy crap we’re in for a shit storm. And TV has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I know, I know…I’m the Prince of Gloom, but tell me I’m wrong (*please*, I want to be wrong)…
So, the latest dark cloud to come out of Hollywood is the announcement that Deutsche Bank has closed its film financing unit, effectively withdrawing hundreds of millions of dollars from future film development.
“So what”, you say? Do we really need summer blockbusters that bad? True…true….but it’s that damned “sub-prime credit crisis” that keeps rearing its ugly head that keeps me blogging.
This is a perfect example of how unpaid bills in Georgia can affect industries and people all over the world.
I know that I risk sounding like the guy on the beach who saw the tsunami coming and “harshed the buzz” of those just wanting to play whiffle ball on the beach by saying, “Hey, look on the horizon”, but…
“Tsunami!”
