Economic Stimulus: This ‘Teaser Pony’ Will Never Get The Mare Into The Breeding Shed

Perhaps, … now is NOT the time to tell you I ‘told you so,’ but all American states and cities are rushing up to the mother pig, jockeying for position, elbowing  each other for a gut full of mother’s sweet milk. The economic stimulus program, in terms of size, is the equivalent of a giant country, the 15th largest in the entire world of mankind. In terms of federal  expansionist fiscal policy it is the greatest spigate of cash into the American economy since LBJ’s Great Society program. It will bring the total federal taxpayer involvement to a little over $10 Trillion dollars since Lehman Monday. As everyone and their uncle strives with panic to stop the flooding with cash and hopes and sheer attitude, the American ship is soon to list over its side and the roads and bridges and sewer lines and the massive temporary diversion for cops and prosecutors and courts, including equipment like cruisers and SWAT weapons and dogs and the like when nobody is looking will have been for nothing.

Far from being fatalistic, this is the reality ladies and gentlemen, and the reasons why are fairly straight forward and they are not at all difficult to see. The little piglets are, irrespective of our preference for labeling what is white as black and that which is black, white, going to grow into something for certainty–pigs. And they will eat themselves right out of house and home. The problems  are such that nobody really dares to look at them because all policy makers, and the mass media which serves them like a cheerleader, knod knowingly among themselves, saying–what we spend money on is something we largely have no choice but to spend money on. We cannot stop spending money on cops because the streets are dangerous. Hiding behind the bushes of their own scares, there is a sex offender underneath every bush, a terrorist behind every trash can. They–policy makers and the media–never read the latest assessments of the so-called National Security establishment, which holds that the economic crisis is now more of a threat than is any terrorist organization on earth. Threat to what?

To the piglets becoming full-grown pigs. To maintaining something that is not sustainable in the first instance and something that is immoral in the second instance–the American ‘Way of Life.’ The American consumer of the 1990’s and through the 9/11 scares and until now is more often than not a greedy and selfish pig and serving such a filthy appetite for such an unclean animal is precisely what has brought the American economy to its knees. The most important thought of the 20th Century, that we could have and we should desire ‘unlimited economic growth,’ is a prescription for the nihilistic excess that produced the dotcom bomb and financial contagion swiftly behind its heels. Now … it is truly payday, consequences, and as one surveys the landscape all around them it is not at all difficult to attain to the truth–the end long ago foretold is fast approaching, like a historic East Wind of unprecedented humanitarian crisis and singularly exclusive glory for the sole and only rightful rule over the whole of mankind. Whether any of us like it or not is utterly irrelevant for it was a dastardly lie and an equally dramatic impossibility that mankind was ever able to rightly govern anyone, especially not him- or herself. All that mankind has done is govern his fellow man to his or her injury. More of the same is exactly what will ensure the end arrives much sooner than anyone now thinks possible.

Today’s press will again tell you all about it, a glimmer here and a tidbit there, and between the lines is a persisting context that squeals like a litter of new puppies, telling us that something new and precious is now among us and that beyond the despair and the loss is a most radiant glory, long ago promised by the One who does not lie, ever. To see it, though, you have to let go of everything you thought valuable, pursuant to the American ‘Way of Life.”

A teaser pony is a chance to see whether or not the mare is willing to go into the breeding barn with a prospective stallion. If she is going to kick the living tar out of any male that gets within striking distance to her let it be something other than a stallion that garners maybe $200,000.00 a whack. If she presents herself, meaning she is ready to go into the barn, the stallion is brought out and plans consumated as it were. This mare the world faces is no more interested in breeding than is the Man-in-the-Moon. Unemployment and fiscal demands are going to kick the living tar out of state and local governments and it will soon enough become plain to anyone looking on that there will not be any more new colts or fillies from this mare. The only thing this mare will bring into this world is this: the final seeds of the end. In “States and Cities in Scramble for Stimulus Cash,” NY Times …

“For every job the bill creates, American taxpayers will spend $223,000,” … “If we add the cost of this bill to the previous efforts of the federal government to deal with the financial crisis, the American taxpayer is on the hook for $9.7 trillion.”

The economic crisis is literally consuming the American landscape like a voracious monster. “With each passing hour, it seems, the avalanche of bad economic news, forecasts and anecdotes continues.” NY Times.com, “Economists’ Forecasts: Chance of Change 100%.” The story by David W. Chen continues:

“An unemployment rate of 7.4 percent in December, compared with 5.1 percent two years ago. A projected hemorrhaging of 294,000 jobs — 46,000 from Wall Street alone — by the summer of 2010.”

“A 41 percent drop in condominium sales from 2006 to 2008, and a 58 percent plunge for multifamily homes.”

“A city budget deficit of $4 billion this year, and as much as $7 billion the next.”

Listen plainly to this and gather the sense of this thing, where anyone with true courage only dares to look; From NY Times.com, David W. Chen, supra,

“I’m concerned about people being so desperate that they lose the fear of losing their own lives and they become so desperate that they’re willing to endanger other people’s lives,”–John Tepper Marlin, Former Chief Economist, City Comptroller’s Office, City of New York.

“You could say that there are wrong-way signs everywhere,” Nicole Gelinas, Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute

 Japan’s economy, utterly tied to its exports of things to buy and own, is in a spinning free fall of loss and despair. See: “Japan’s Recession Deepens,” Washington Post.com

“The grim numbers are likely to increase popular pressure on the government to do more to stimulate economic recovery. But there may be little that the current government can do.”

You are going to hear that more and more, that there is little the current government can do, and with increasing urgency and deeper and deeper and ever widening circles of despair. That woman sitting on top of the wild beast is and must become the horror of all human focus and her full and complete reach into the affairs of mankind is, once realized with the benefit of certainty, the near future giving all of mankind that accurate vision, properly described as “horrific.” The consequences are Draconian to say the least. She has aroked hard for this ending and this wicked thing of man’s making will soon become a widow and her children will be lost to her. The scriptures have long foretold it and the only amazing thing, really, is that few are talking about that, perhaps fearful of being labeled a wing nut or worse by the very mob that will try to dig its way out of this mess by doing exactly what created this mess in the first place.

Everyone of any policy-making account will try to spend and borrow their way out of this. Wrong move. It was what brought this problem on in the first place. Buying and seeling will not solve this problem of mankind’s making but it was long ago foretold that this would be mankind’s approach, all the way to the time when the whole world looks upon the Great Harlot’s grisly remains, and the whole world knows with certainty who has judged her and executed judgment against her. Until then, they will simply take no note. The real remaining oddity is the arrogance of mankind in actually believing that by disbelieving something it made it untrue. Oh, it is true alright. It is ultimate reality. And it is at the gates!

 

 

Matthew 24:37-39

 

 

“. . .For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be.  For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”

 

The Economy Is Congealing Like Jell-O In The Last Hours–In The Cold Dark–Of Mankind’s Zenith …

… And I am telling it outright, the Lion of Judah is near at the gates, for how else could His Majesty’s “parousia” be made even more clear to hearts that simply do not want the truth, who simply wish to be left to live as they desire, with little or less in their way? Every time I read the propaganda originating from the mass media echo chamber of the historic Southern Kingdom I am almost to the point of shouting it out from the rooftops. The words–and their emotional context–from the top echelons of Satan’s visible earthly organization is in increasingly urgent contexts; what is more, it is what is seemingly a script written by the ancient prophets of Israel. The economy, meanwhile, is in truth congealing like Jell-O in the deep cold, and the darkness which precludes clear sight by the majority of mankind, who have found themselves at the end times exactly as Jesus warned he would find them:

(Luke 12:35-40) . . .”Let YOUR loins be girded and YOUR lamps be burning,  and YOU yourselves be like men waiting for their master when he returns from the marriage, so that at his arriving and knocking they may at once open to him. Happy are those slaves whom the master on arriving finds watching! Truly I say to YOU, He will gird himself and make them recline at the table and will come alongside and minister to them. And if he arrives in the second watch, even if in the third, and finds them thus, happy are they! But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have kept watching and not have let his house be broken into. YOU also, keep ready, because at an hour that YOU do not think likely the Son of man is coming.”

Clearly the issue is a lack of belief, not just a lack of faith. At least those who desire to believe “can” come to believe just as soon as they realize that it is faith that leads them to ask Jehovah for the light to really see in these dark and increasingly critical times we find ourselves. The mass media is in such a state of confused flux that one can watch the headlines change at the New York Times, for the same stories. This morning, for example, the Front Page story about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s approach to the circumstances surrounding the latest economic recovery plan originally expressed that he, the Treasury Secretary of the federal government, had lost faith in the banking system. Did you hear that? Now the headline has been refashioned to say that the American people have lost faith in the leaders of the nation’s financial system. His job is to restore that confidence, along with the greater task–restoring the economy itself. When I saw this I rubbed my eyes and no denials as ‘cover’ will alter my testimony on this issue.

I caught the difference in the headline in between first tea and leaving for the day and arriving for a closer look. The full context of the story itself likewise appears to have been ”tweaked.” I am assuming someone got a telephone call from someone high up in the Obama Administration and this particular statue was refashioned before the clay hardened for the day, and some new clay was added as well. In response to this shifting presentation of factual uncertainties, “Geithner Details New Bank Rescue Plan,” NY Times.

 

 

 

 

 

“The announcement of the Treasury and Fed plans was met with a negative reaction on Wall Street. At noon, less than an hour after Mr. Geithner spoke, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 285 points, or 3.5 percent, after more modest losses in early trading.”

The propaganda machinery was concerned about “causing” more downturn in “confidence,” and went from a story that correctly portrayed national banks as being given a windfall of taxpayer dollars, which they unethically used to buy other banks and perform balance sheet functions without regard to restoring new lending, as expressly desired by the federal government, to a story that portrays those things as a “viewpoint” of the American people, one that was, perhaps, only partially true. The major minds of the New York Stock Exchange no doubt sees the difference between the stories and, while I am unable to quantify the precise changes in story text, it is a curious oddity at best to see such a headline–which historically and by journalistic convention strives to distill the story into a headline that grabs and holds the reader–transform in such a small measure of time. I am saying the headline changed, absolutely, what I believe I saw as a story also changed, and in between I am quite suspicious that someone called the New York Times publisher and gained a favor, for the sake of the economy and a new administration.

Edmund L. Andrews and Stephen Labatan would hold the keys to unlock this little tidbit and one would no doubt wonder what was in their hearts.

Nonetheless, the economy is congealing. Barack Obama meets in a region with unemployment listed at nearly 16%–the very same kind of “double digit” inflation that typically accompanies “depressions.” I did say the “D” word intentionally, didn’t I? National Public Radio had a bit of talk on that very issue yesterday and as the days move forward one will begin to hear it more and more and more, until it is unavoidable in the collective psyche of the American people. Every effort to make things look as though they could get decidedly worse and that things are still capable of salvation, with the right mix of political wisdom and consumer and investor confidences. This will continue until doing so any longer is plainly futile and the speakers of such nonsense are held as either purposefully lying or worse by a majority of those whose voices matter to the political harlot that governs over the coming catastrophe.

At least we know this much–the mass media echo chamber is unsure of what to say and that many believe that what is said has a hugely untold importance, in terms of societal confidence–in government and in any potential turnaround. We know, at least for now, that many in the higher echelons of power believe that much of the “problem” is in what the American people “believe.” I never thought that day would ever come, that what one believed was more important to governing that what conditions actually were. The whole nightmare is an illusion and if you watch it closely enough it does a sleight-of-hand right before your very eyes. for the future it will be very important to save actual text and attach time stamps to that text and the movement, in terms of substance and its face, of the story will itself start becoming he story of the day. The reason why this is so is b ecause the media truly does not know what to say. Everything looks like the American economy is a freight train that is heading for a giant wreck. The media “feels it” and knows it is so, and yet to say it will incite to panic and despair, both of which are deadly and worse to the very delicate hope that remains in the midst of the American people.

At the gates  is the “thief in the night,” and our deliverance has drawn near. What we are seeing is the beginnings of the “crushing” that was long ago foretold  by the prophet Daniel. (2:44) Wow! These are truly exciting times indeed. Now watch all the layoffs continue, and with it the rising tsunami of defaults that are coming, and with it bank failures by thre bushel basket.

If one did not know any better they could and would necessarily conclude that a “thief” was systematically plundering the economy. I am smiling so broadly right now I am fearful my face might crack. The Great Day is hurrying up very much indeed.

 

 

National Banking System Insolvent By Over $2.5 Trillion: Now Comes The Tsunami–Defaults!

John Markman’s, MSN Money’s, analysis of the national banking system’s probable insolvency (See: “Why The Bank Bailouts Are Doomed”) is something I did not notice last month. I would have taken the issue up and spent some time with it if I had noticed it. I encourge anyone and everyone to read this thoughtful analysis because one thing it does do that most every other commentary does not do is this: it takes off the Pollyanna, rose-colored glasses of “we’re simply in a recession” nonsense. We are not “simply in a recession.” We are on the very cusp of the long ago foretold end times and as time goes on people will be left with the reality that this is not only true but that while they slept they lost the opportunity to survive it.

Let’s punch out some of the key analytical facts from Mr. Markman’s insightful analysis.

“The math is not complicated. Bank losses from the write-offs of bad loans and busted derivatives tally up to $1.5 trillion so far. In addition, $5 trillion to $10 trillion worth of off-balance-sheet businesses such as structured investment vehicles …”

Add the $1.5 trillion in losses to $1 trillion in needed new reserves, and you can see that banks need as much as $2.5 trillion in new capital to remain solvent under current rules.”

Ultimately, Mr. Markman writes:

“… time is running out, because the next phase of the credit crisis is at the door: the part where we see a normal rise of loan defaults during a recession, further crushing banks’ earnings. At the moment, defaults are running at 2.5%, but history shows they will hit 10%-plus over the next year or two as commercial real estate and business loans sour. This is why fixing the banking system will not end the recession; it will help only to smooth the path of a turbulent descent.”

Defaults that are looming over the horizon, which appears as ice fog over an economic system that is literally “congealing” as we speak. Today’s mass media leaks out a few more hints at possible, coming business failures, including Chrysler, Six Flags, Blockbuster, Krispy Kreme, and others . (See: “15 Companies That Might Not Survive 2009,” Yahoo! Finance.com) The real and truthful unemployment rate today is vastly understated. One of the most carefully guarded secrets right now in government is the truth about unemployment. Fears about consumer and investor responses is driving a machine of lies about present unemployment. That policy of lies, however, has a price tag–the defaults that loom over the horizon will point right at it. I sincerely believe we have over 12% of the population unemployed right now, including those that policy makers have agreed to disregard in labor statistics reporting but otherwise remain desirous of working but are, for one reason or another, unable to find work. At the height of the Depression we had unemployment at about 25%. I am saying we are already about half-way there. The 8% we are hearing about vastly understates true unemployment in this country and when all the defaults roll in people are going to be asking–”why did so many default on their loans and their credit card debt”?

When the salivating neofascists enacted bankruptcy reform not long ago I knew, I sat back, smiled and knew, for certainty, that this would result in a massive wave of injustice nationwide, because it was enacted without concern for the plight of debtors. It was so creditor biased that it practically required debtors to consent to be raped in public if they were to avail themseles of the powerful remedies allowed under Title 11 United States Code. At the time, as Americans were riding high on a wave of borrowed doom, as they lied to themselves that loans were wealth, that liabilities were assets, and thus those who were insolvent at the time were deemed as moral losers, as failures that deserved to be punished with injustice and cruelty. They looked away as the nation’s creditors demanded the right to punish and even transform Chapter 13 into the modern-day equivalent of indentured servitude. Now ordinary people are looking at bankruptcy because they cannot make their car payments, their mortgage payments, their credit card payments, and they are appalled at what bankruptcy really affords them. What happened? Who did this?

I suppose the cries will go out for real bankruptcy reform and if that occurs, of course, the impact upon businesses–also known as creditors–will deepen, leading to even greater problems with balance sheet problems at the banks downtown.

Humanitarian crisis is on the way. Unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the United States is looming over the horizon. Selfishness and greed will preclude any of the creditors developing a holistic approach to the problem of account receivables, they will, instead, become increasingly rabid. Debt collection will be the new growth industry during the next 12 months. This will likely churn large waves of court cases by contingency fee attorneys, who gain a portion of the judgments. To protect themselves and their dwindling assets, debtors will be driven into Bankruptcy Court in droves. Indentured servitude in the United States of America.

As you look at all the various linkages, and there are so many which remain hidden even now, which will come to light at things develop–which is another way to say “as things worsen”–the entire system of things is on a course to be plundered and robbed blind. I think that is the way to describe it. It is as though a superhuman thief were walking about taking anything and everything he wanted to take, from anyone, anywhere, and it is happening on such a massive scale, over the entire surface of the earth, that is leaves you breathless to consider the implications.

I have been saying it as often as I speak and so I will say it again. Things are not going to get better. They are going to keep on getting worse. They will continue to turn downwards, and everything that is tried will only plunder and rob and achieve very little else other than to highlight how futile things are. People are going to increasingly look out their windows and realize that the world is on a ride to the depths of despair and beyond. Although he still has hope that things will improve, and surely he does not say what I am saying–that things will continue to erode to the point of the Great Tribulation long ago foretold–John Markman ( see cite above) says:

“Get out your parachutes — it’s going to be a rough landing. “

Rough landing is an understatement. Now, one last point I have made before and make again: If you have any significant money in the banks, get it out NOW. Better do something more constructive with it. Eliminate debt. Pay off your car loans. Pay your mortgage off if you can. Reduce your monthly outflow on debt as much as you possibly can. Think frugal. Think small. Think basics. Draw things in as tightly as you can get them. At a Town Hall meeting today President Barack Obama put it this way: “Obama To Elkhart: I’ll Do All I Can.”

“The situation we face could not be more serious. We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression. Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don’t act immediately, millions more jobs will be lost, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse.”

I’m telling you plainly. It will not be reversed, except possibly for a brief appearance of resurgence, long enough and significant enough to permit the long ago foretold cry of peace and security. For now? Just watch the defaults roll in like a huge Tsunami and watch the banks bleed in bright-red gushers of economic gore.

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Financial Contagion Deepens: U.S. Banks Stuffing Mattress of U.S. Federal Reserve For Endless Cycles Of Financial & Regulatory Incest

This morning I sat back and shivered. 15 degrees is fairly cold and for reasons I as of yet do not fully understand I have had a really hard time getting warm this Winter anyway. I was so cold the other day on the Navajo Reservation that I had to think back a very, very long time to come up with another time wherein I felt so cold. It is nothing of consequence, really. The chill that the worldwide financial contagion has put on credit markets is so permanent in appearance that I scarcely can imagine any meaningful thaw within the next 120 days. The expose’ of a small Michigan bank, Independent, in the New York Times today is instructive. I will turn to that presently.

It is an elementary fact that the United States economy has been and remains utterly dependent upon the flow of credit. American economic activity is invariably a function of debt managment, at every locus of each sector of the economy. States are striving to meet red ink demands, reportedly now turning to gasoline taxation again, while the American consumer has all attention diverted away to other things more pressing than the current price of car and truck fuel. When it rises again–and it will rise again, markedly–it may take a brief bit of catching up, but one full tank will remove the blinders of what has been achieved when nobody was looking. The public will not be amused. I howl at it, really, because any soul with half a pie left between the ears could see it in an instant–this thing is heading down, down, down, and there is no conceivable way to either stop that downward trend or even to meaningfully prepare for it. All you can do is just hold on.

Independent Bank in Michigan got some $75 Million and instead of loaning the money out to grease the gears–what was intended by the bailout in the first place–its officers wrote a check near the same amount back to the Federal Reserve. More … –Ben Bernanke & Co.  just took the money and stuffed it back into the FED mattress. It did nothing of consequence for the economy. If someone wrote me a check for over $70 Million I would know about it. Yet Mr. Bernanke just deposited the check and no questions like–hey, wait a minute, we want this money loaned out? People, it is safe to say at this point that Washington truly has no idea whatever how to prevent what is coming and the rest is mere window dressing.  See …  “In Michigan, Bank Lend Little Of Its Bailout Funds,” NY Times.com.

“As of Tuesday, 257 financial institutions in 42 states had received $192 billion in capital injections from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, out of $250 billion set aside for this purpose. Seven giant banks — like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — have received more than 62 percent of the total so far, and have gotten most of the attention.”

AND …

“With no surge in lending taking place right away — and the bank very much looking for a way to improve its own balance sheet — Independent took the $72 million check that arrived from Treasury in mid-December and immediately transferred it to the Federal Reserve to pay down short-term loans it had taken out.”

“This month, the bank is planning to leverage that bailout money to buy about $160 million in mortgage-backed securities from institutions like Fannie Mae, an investment that it hopes will produce enough interest income to pay the dividend it owes the federal government. Again, this will bring little immediate benefit to Michigan businesses and residents. In essence, the $72 million has been stuffed into Treasury’s own mattress.”

Banks are refusing to lend because they believe that the business cycle is not finished sifting out between winners and losers. Yet investment in distressed assets over at Fannie Mae over investment in the very local community Independent purports to serve is ample notice that things are going to get much worse indeed.

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