From Matt Taibbi's "The Great American Bubble Machine" in Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83.
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
Any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy. They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage.
Interview and discussion with Eliot Spitzer of the Spitzer Enterprise. He talks about Goldman Sachs financial earnings and Matt Tiabbi's article.
Available office space rose to 41.2 million square feet, the highest level in the past four and a half years, according to the second-quarter report released today by full-service commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. The availability rate reached 11.5 percent, up from 10.5 percent at the end of first-quarter 2009. Asking rents also showed weakness. They fell in Manhattan, dropping 7.4 percent to $60.23 per square foot from $65.01 per foot in the first quarter of the year.
With U.S. unemployment at a 20-year high, some Americans are working for free while looking for a job, but experts are split over whether it is a sign of dedication or desperation. Unpaid job seekers can keep their resumes fresh by boosting their experience and learning new skills, experts say, but others warn businesses may take advantage of the jobless and that it is illegal for commercial companies not to pay workers. Dana Lin, 22, is one of the 14.7 million unemployed workers in the United States. She lost her marketing job at a technology company near San Francisco in April and since then has been working for free for about five hours a week for Internet company Jobnob.com. "Every company has thousands of people applying for each job, and I realized I needed more appeal," said Lin, a graduate of Cornell University. Since being laid off, she has applied unsuccessfully for about 50 jobs. "In some cases companies might be getting the better end of it," she said. "But it's nice to have something occupy yourself with and when speaking to prospective employers it's nice to say 'I haven't just been sitting around all day, I've actually been doing something.'" It's not only the unemployed taking on free work. Some employed people are being asked by bosses to go without pay.
President Obama's "car czar" is trading in his job at the same time a New York state probe into his hedge fund intensifies. Steve Rattner, co-founder of Quadrangle Group, is stepping down as the head of the White House's auto task force after just five months. The departure comes as Quadrangle faces scrutiny by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo into allegations Rattner's firm gave kickbacks to secure state pension fund business.
From The Daily Show
The Representative from Massachusetts would prefer the 'stimulus' plan, positive connotations and all that jazz.
Also, he wasn't for homeownership. I don't know where you got that from. He was for affordability. And, gettin' personal, BF says his BF, Jimmy, often doesn't know whether to hug him or flip out on him, in case any (all) of you were wondering what it's like to date Barney Frank.
Discussion of the 50% Retracement Rule,
potential future price levels, time studies, key dates, Fibonacci, Gann, Astro numbers, Robert Rhea's Great Depression analysis.
Veteran journalist and former LBJ speechwriter Bill Moyers has the quote of the day, from an excellent article on government and media corruption: Nothing will change -- nothing -- until the money lenders are tossed out of the temple, the ATM's are wrested from the marble halls, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government -- the one that reads, "For Sale."
Economics is not an exact science. It pales in comparison to mathematics because it contains a high component of art in its analysis. With that said, there are several principles that still apply. One such principle is: when the condition of an economy becomes overleveraged, it needs to experience consistently expanding GDP with unabated asset price appreciation and a falling currency, or it will become insolvent. A fall in economic activity leads to lower asset prices, which force the dumping of those assets held on leverage. Also, an increase in the value of money will increase the value of all debt making it much more difficult to repay. The resulting dumping of assets leads to a deflationary spiral and economic turmoil.
The only debate should be about what constitutes insurmountable debt and what qualifies as an overleveraged condition. Taking on a small amount of debt that is used to acquire capital goods is always acceptable. However, a problem occurs when debt levels rise to the point where it becomes greater than a country's growth or taxing capacity. But the fact is that the debt of the United States both measured nominally and as a percentage of GDP has never been greater. Total non-financial debt at the conclusion of Q1 2009 was $33.9 trillion, while total debt as a percentage of GDP was 361%! For me, the consequences of our record breaking and historic levels of debt are clear. Our country is faced with the decision to debase the currency by massively inflating the money supply or allow the depressingly painful deleveraging cycle to run its course.
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