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#Post#: 216--------------------------------------------------
Between 1944 and 1971 was a period of declining inequality
because the financial genie was put back into the bottle ...
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 5, 2022, 5:03 pm
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[center]
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FEBRUARY 22, 2022 BY JASON MYLES AND PASCAL ROBERT
[center]"WE ARE LIVING IN A POST-CAPITALIST, TECHNO-FEUDALIST
DYSTOPIA" -- YANIS VAROUFAKIS[/center]
[center]
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-170415130136.png[/center]
[move]World-renowned Greek economist, author, and politician
Yanis Varoufakis argues that global capitalism as we know it is
dying—and something much worse is taking its place.[/move]
SNIPPET:
And then with the 1929 disaster, The Grapes of Wrath in the
United States, in Europe and so on, capitalism had to be saved
from itself by creating more demand for stuff. That’s the New
Deal. And then the Bretton Woods system after the Great War. So,
especially when there was a Soviet Union to antagonize
capitalism, they started granting more and more rights,
redistributing money, creating free education in some countries
or cheaper education in the United States for the workers and so
on, until 1991 when this competition from communism disappeared.
And then they said, okay. Now, we don’t need to give them
anything. We’ll take everything back. Which is exactly what
🎩👿 they did, and you just described one way of
doing it.
Read more or watch video:
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-111018132422-1692935.gif
HTML https://therealnews.com/yanis-varoufakis-we-are-living-in-a-post-capitalist-techno-feudalist-dystopia
#Post#: 217--------------------------------------------------
“Fuel prices are INELASTIC when the price of oil goes down and
ELASTIC when the oil prices go up.” (wink – nod).
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 5, 2022, 5:05 pm
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March 08, 2022
HTML https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Wolf-street-logo-20.png
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[center]Crude Oil WTI Futures Go Bananas, Briefly Spike to $130:
And this
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/>Is What’s Happening at my Gas Station[/center]
[move]Speculators are reacting to other speculators who are
reacting to whatever.[/move]
by Wolf Richter • Mar 6, 2022 • 247 Comments
SNIPPET:
The reason the price spiked isn’t because the US is suddenly
running out of crude oil or anything, but because 🐍
traders and algos smelled an opportunity and jumped on it, and
drove up the price of those futures, and it’s pure speculation,
but that’s what futures trading always is.
The US doesn’t import much Russian crude and could do just fine
without Russian crude – and that’s why the import ban is even
proposed. And if some buyers in the US actually buy Russian
crude, it’s simply another trade, like a gazillion others, but
Russian crude is a big part of the gigantic complex global oil
trade.
HTML https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/US-Crude-oil-WTI-price-2022-03-06_.png
For example, California is cut off from other US producing
regions because there’s no pipeline across the Rockies. It
produces some of its own crude oil and imports some crude oil
from Alaska, and imports crude from the rest of the world. The
local refineries, such as those in the Bay Area, buy this
imported crude and refine it and export large quantities of
gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to Latin America, which is a
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418193910.gifhuge<br
/>profitable business.
Those exports of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel also go to
Mexico, which in turn sells a large amount of crude oil to the
US. This is all part of the vast and complex global oil trade.
Everyone’s doing it, and it is now getting thrown into chaos.
So far, Russian crude oil exports have been very carefully
exempted from the sanctions, but there is such chaos around
blocked payment systems and shipping involving Russia that
buyers are reluctant to buy physical Russian crude and ship
owners are reluctant to transport it. And futures traders are
jumping all over this.
Now, the
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/>“76” tourist-trap gas station here in my neighborhood in San
Francisco – the brand “76” is owned by Phillips 66 – doesn’t
sell crude oil, and it doesn’t sell futures either. It sells
physical gasoline that has been in its tanks for some time. That
gasoline came from the [b]Phillips 66 refinery in the Bay Area,
which took delivery of the crude oil well before then at prices
that were set even before then – when prices were a lot
lower.[/b]
Nevertheless, even as the cost of the gasoline in the tanks
hasn’t changed, the price has been surging. And the difference
is just extra profit.
Full article: 👀
HTML https://wolfstreet.com/2022/03/06/crude-oil-wti-futures-go-bananas-briefly-hit-130-this-is-whats-happening-at-my-gas-station
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/>🦖 jessy james Mar 7, 2022 at 11:35 pm
What most consumers of regular unleaded seem to be clueless
about is those underground storage tanks at every tourist trap
fill in station MUST be refilled, at minimum, every other day.
Those tanks can hold at most 12,000 gallons. Do the math, if you
doubt my statement.
Gelbert > 🦖 jessy james Mar 8, 2022 at 1:05 pm
The only math that is applicable here is, as Wolf said in so
many words, price gouging.
The hydrocarbon industry has a pet “economics math” sounding
phrase they are very fond of: “Fuel prices are INELASTIC when
the price of oil goes down and ELASTIC when the oil prices go
up.” (wink – nod). That fuel price setting modus operandi is a
disingenuous excuse to price gouge on the way up and not lose a
penny of profit on the way down.
Another part of math that Wolf has done, and the
HTML https://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-311013201314.png<br
/>petroleum industry doesn’t want you do do, is the oil futures
price relation to physical supplies of crude oil and fuels at
the pump. There is no excuse whatsoever for raising the price of
fuels based on zooming up price futures contracts frenzy, yet
HTML https://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714191329.bmp<br
/>they do that with glee.
Check out how much crude oil is stored at any refinery at any
time. You will find that it is, at the very least, a month of
pre-refined crude. Often it is much more than that because they
have a large tank farm on the grounds.
You cannot take a load of crude off of a tanker and start
refining it right away. This is because several steps (e.g.
stripping the crude oil of excess oxygen), required to prepare
the crude for refining, take a significant amount of time. The
actual process of refining takes place in the cracking towers.
The “crude” that goes into the cracking towers is quite a bit
more pure than the crude that arrives at the refinery.
So, ANY actual increase in crude oil price should certainly not
be reflected at any refinery for at least a month.
The new gasoline and diesel and heating oil coming out of the
higher priced crude should not see a gas station tank or a
heating oil truck tank for at least 6 weeks. Yet, they pull the
old “ELASTIC” price (gouging) on the way up TRICK, with a
straight face, every single time.
No wonder the oil majors are up around 5% today (i.e. March 8,
2022); they are in price gouging heaven and we-the-people are
getting the “elastic” shaft.
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Kresten Mar 7, 2022 at 6:09 pm
In Denmark, gas just passed $10/gallon. That’s something like
+$20/100mi. Thank god for EVs: charge them at night for $0.20/Wh
or ~$6/100mi.
Gelbert > Kresten Mar 8, 2022 at 12:20 pm
Well said. I hope this pushes more people towards ⚡
EVs🌞 and away from 🦖 gas guzzling
☠️ pollution mobiles.
#Post#: 218--------------------------------------------------
Incentives for housing in Vermont
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 5, 2022, 5:08 pm
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[center]
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[center]
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Mar 9 2022 By Fred Thys
[center]
Senate advances a bill providing Incentives for more housing
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422180949.png[/center]
SNIPPET:
The bill also allows the housing agency to offer grants to
middle-income home buyers who cannot afford to buy a home. Those
buyers would have to pass along the grants when they sell the
home. The agency also would be able to use some funds for grants
to first-generation home buyers to cover down payments and
closing costs.
If it passes, the bill would authorize $3 million to improve
manufactured-home communities, $1 million to repair manufactured
homes and make them compliant with the Americans with
Disabilities Act and another $1 million in grants to build
foundations and install utility connections for manufactured
homes, all for fiscal year 2023.
Mobile homes “are an inexpensive element of our housing stock
that is suffering in many cases from lack of attention,” said
Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, chair of the committee.
“And we don’t want to lose those homes.”
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-250817121649.png
While Sen. Michael Sirotkin said 7,000 people live in mobile
homes in Vermont, that is actually the number of lots in mobile
home parks. State figures show 44,000 Vermonters lived in mobile
homes in 2017, about one-third of them in mobile home parks.
Full article:
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HTML https://vtdigger.org/2022/03/09/senate-advances-a-bill-providing-incentives-for-more-housing/
[center]
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[center]
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[/center]
#Post#: 219--------------------------------------------------
My “Wealth Disparity Monitor” of the Fed’s Money-Printer Era:
Holy Moly. April Update of the Greatest Economic Injustice
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 5, 2022, 5:45 pm
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HTML https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Wolf-street-logo-20.png
by Wolf Richter • Apr 3, 2022 • 321 Comments
[center]My “Wealth Disparity Monitor” of the Fed’s Money-Printer
Era: Holy Moly. April Update of the Greatest Economic Injustice
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif<br
/>in Recent History[/center]
The Fed’s wealth distribution data divides the US population
into four groups by wealth: The “Top 1%,” the “Next 9%” (2% to
10%),” the “next 40%,” and the “bottom 50%.” My Wealth Effect
Monitor divides this data by the number of households in each
category, to obtain the average wealth per household in each
category. Note the immense increase in the wealth for the 1%
households after the Fed’s money-printing scheme and interest
rate repression started in March 2020:
HTML https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/US-wealth-effect-monitor-2022-04-02-category_per_household.png
As you can see from the steep curve of the red line, the “Top
1%” households were the primary beneficiaries of the Fed’s
policies since March 2020. These policies were designed to
inflate asset prices, and only asset holders benefited from
that. The more assets they held, the more they benefited.
The Census Bureau defines a household by address. Each address
is one household, whoever lives there, whether they’re a
three-generation family, four roommates, a married couple, or a
single person.
So here is the average wealth (= assets minus debts) per
household, by category in Q4, 2021:
🐽 “Top “1%” household (red): $36.2 million.
🐷 The 2% to 10% household (yellow): $4.68 million.
🐖 The “next 40%” household (purple): $775,000.
🥺 The “bottom 50%” household (green): $59,000.
But wait… durable goods.
The Fed includes durable goods in this wealth. Durable goods are
motor vehicles, boats, furniture, electronics, etc. They’re
consumables – unless they’re art, antiques, or classics – and
their value will ultimately go to zero. For the “bottom 50%,”
their durable goods account for nearly 20% of their total assets
and for nearly 50% for their total wealth (assets minus debts).
The 🐽 Billionaire Class got more billions.
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/>
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422162639.gif
The 💰😈🎩🍌Fed doesn’t provide
separate data on the truly rich (the 0.01%) and the Billionaire
Class, a distinct royalty-like class in American society whose
names often have the royal title of “billionaire” in front.
They’re the biggest beneficiaries of the Fed’s monetary
policies.
The top 30 US billionaires have a total wealth of $2.12
trillion, sliced into 30 slices for a wealth of $70.8 billion
per billionaire, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Compare that to the bottom half of the US population – the
“bottom 50%” – who have a combined wealth of just $3.7 trillion,
sliced into 165 million slices for each individual. For them,
the inflated real estate prices just mean higher housing costs.
Reckless usage of percentages can kill someone.
If I give my favorite homeless guy $5, and he already has $5 in
his pocket, I increased his wealth by 100%, which is a huge
percentage jump in wealth. But he’s still homeless and still
doesn’t have any wealth.
Percentage increases are regularly touted to show that the
wealth at the bottom increased, when in fact, it increased by
only minuscule amounts of dollars because the bottom 50% have so
little that even a big percentage increase still amounts to
nearly nothing in dollar terms, compared to the billionaire
class.
When the wealth of the bottom 50% increases by 5%, they gain
about $3,000. And when the average wealth of the top 30
billionaires increases by 5%, they on average gain
$3,500,000,000. And the wealth disparity just blew out. >:(
Greatest economic injustice committed in recent US
history.
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422135315.png
Since March 2020, the Fed printed $4.9 trillion and repressed
short-term interest rates to near-zero in order to inflate asset
prices so that the asset holders would get immensely more
wealthy, in line with its doctrine of the Wealth Effect.
This act has produced the greatest economic injustice committed
in recent US history.
My “Wealth Disparity Monitor” tracks that economic injustice on
a quarterly basis by showing the difference in average wealth
between the top 1% and the bottom 50%, per household, based on
the Fed’s own data.
In 1990, the wealth disparity between the average “top 1%”
household and the average “bottom 50%” household was $5 million.
In Q4 2021, it ballooned by another $1.2 million from the prior
quarter, and by $5.1 million year-over-year, to $36.2 million.
Since the Fed’s crazed money printing binge and interest rate
repression started in March 2020, the wealth disparity between
the average “top 1%” household and the average “bottom 50%”
household has exploded by $11.2 million per household.
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HTML https://wolfstreet.com/2022/04/03/my-wealth-disparity-monitor-of-the-feds-money-printer-era-holy-moly-april-update-of-the-greatest-economic-injustice-in-recent-history/
#Post#: 220--------------------------------------------------
The Fed & .S. Treasury have institutionalized moral hazard,
the disconnect of risk and consequence, for America's elite
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 5, 2022, 5:57 pm
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FRIDAY, JAN 28, 2022 - 12:25 PM
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog
[center]No Wonder The Market Is Skittish[/center]
[move]The equity, real estate and bond markets all rode the
coattails of the Fed's ZIRP and easy-money liqudiity tsunami for
the past 13 years. As those subside, what's left to drive assets
higher?[/move]
SNIPPET:
[center]
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-221219143548.png[/center]
The
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/>Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury have institutionalized moral
hazard, the disconnect of risk and consequence, for America's
financial elite: rather than force those who gambled and lost to
absorb the losses in 2008-09, the Fed and Treasury bailed out
the too big to fail, too big to jail
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418203402.gif<br
/>financial elite, establishing an unspoken policy of
encouraging
the wealthiest individuals and enterprises to borrow and gamble
freely, knowing they could keep any winnings
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418193910.gifhttp://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-200419205214.png<br
/>😈 (and pay low or no taxes on the gains) and transfer
any losses to the Fed and/or
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-040718162656-14241872.gif<br
/>taxpayers.
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[center]
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7. This institutionalization of moral hazard combined with zero
interest rate policy (ZIRP) and an open spigot of liquidity has
driven wealth and income inequality to extremes that are
economically, politically and socially destabilizing. Insider
trading in the Fed and Congress has finally leached out into the
public sphere, and the cozy enrichment of the already
super-wealthy has now reached 💣 extremes that invite
[shadow=black,right]destabilizing[/shadow] 💥
[shadow=red,left]blowback[/shadow].
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[center]
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Full article:
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HTML https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/no-wonder-market-skittish
#Post#: 245--------------------------------------------------
"Inflation is Much Worse for Lower Income Households"
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: April 9, 2022, 5:54 pm
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HTML https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Wolf-street-logo-20.png
by Wolf Richter • Apr 5, 2022
[center]Mortgage Rates Breach 5%, Two-Year & 10-Year Treasury
Yields Spike after Fed Dove Brainard Explains How Inflation is
Much Worse for Lower Income Households
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif<br
/>than CPI Shows[/center]
SNIPPET:
Fed Governor Lael Brainard, one of the biggest doves on the
Fed’s monetary policy committee, explained this morning in
detail that inflation is hitting lower-income households much
worse than higher-income households, and that it is hitting
disadvantaged households, such as those with limited access to
online shopping, even harder, and their inflation rates are far
higher than the national average inflation rates because the
basket of goods they’re buying is systematically different, and
that they’re spending nearly all their money on necessities, and
that they often cannot substitute items whose prices have jumped
with lower-cost items, because they’re already buying the
lowest-cost items to begin with, and there is no way to go lower
on the ladder. They can only buy less, such as buying less of
the cheapest store-brand cereal, which is the example she used.
It was an indictment of Consumer Price Inflation, depicting it
as the scourge that it is for the people at the lower half of
the income scale
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145352-5611428.gif.<br
/>And then she said that the 💰🎩 Fed would have
to,
and will
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-050921221152.jpeg,<br
/>crack down on inflation to get this under control.
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/>
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Full article:
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HTML https://wolfstreet.com/2022/04/05/mortgage-rates-breach-5-two-year-10-year-treasury-yields-spike-after-fed-dove-brainard-explains-how-inflation-is-much-worse-for-lower-income-households-than-cpi-shows/
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-210818163123-16652282.gif<br
/>AGelbert NOTE: I am unconvinced that the Fed will do anything
beyond lip service to stop the galloping inflation THEY
DELIBERATELY CREATED to bail out Wall Street, that has been
adversely impacting mostly the lower-income households for at
least TWO decades. The only reason they are making sympathetic
noises now is because of the rapidly rising bond coupon rates,
which are now starting to adversely impact the top 10%'s ability
to "leverage" (i.e. borrow money cheaply for) their profit over
people and planet corporate speculation rampage. In addition,
rapidly rising mortgage rates will kill the home asset "wealth
effect" (also deliberately created by the Fed) because home
prices will be forced down.
The Fed has never cared about anybody but the top 10% because
that wealthy 10% own nearly 90% of the stocks.
I am certain that right now some Fed crooked bean counters are
busy trying to convince Biden to "change" the method the BLS
uses to compute the CPI so that it further disguises the
inflation THEFT misery visted 24/7 on the poor and middle class.
That "new" method is called the "Chained" CPI. It is a
masterpiece of mathematical legerdemain. They've been trying to
foist that on we-the-people for about 20 years now. I hope they
don't do that, but the Fed tiger has never changed its 'kotowing
ONLY to the Social Darwinist top 10%' Capitalist Cruelty
stripes, and neither have Biden or the Republicans, for that
matter.
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/>
[center]
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#Post#: 292--------------------------------------------------
Money Comment of the Century
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 10, 2022, 11:06 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[center]Money Comment of the Century [/center]
--- Quote ---
> Detective Walker
>
> Let’s do a little multi -decade macroeconomic recap, shall we?
The dot-com bubble burst around 2000, then 9/11 happened.
Instead of allowing a much needed, detoxifying recession.. then
Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan, decided it’d be best to ‘lessen the
blow’ by gradually cutting interest rates. By 2004, those rates
were at the miniscule 1% level. Remember those stimmy checks
that GW Bush mailed out to everyone? (I bought USA-made GoreTex
for the rainy days I knew were coming.) Lower interest rates
were great, right? It would allow poor people, who could never
afford a home, to finally get their slice of the American Dream.
That cheap credit allowed for easier and easier borrowing, laxed
lending standards, and a real estate market that kept rising so
exponentially, that home owners could re-fi at will, using their
homes as a perpetually self-loading ATM.
>
> How did that go? Boom. Collapse in 2008 that nearly brought
the world’s economy to shambles. Fed chair Ben Bernanke told us
Sub-Prime was contained… hmmm. Anyways, what was the Fed’s
response? Even lower rates, and introduce unprecedented
money-printing, giving it a fancy name: QE (Quantitative
Easing). So, a relatively short period of 1% rates nearly
destroyed the global economy… curious to see the effects of 12+
years of Zero (ZIRP). Oh wait.. the Fed did try to cut QE and
raise rates. They got to a blistering high number of 2.5% at the
end of 2018 and the stock market did a nose dive. A reverse
course rate cut immediately followed Xmas that year.
>
> Bernanke made the cover of Time Magazine, as “Man of the Year
2009”, receiving praises for ‘saving the world’. Does sweeping
poop under a rug define bravery? Yellen and Powell doubled-down
on terrible monetary policy and trapped the Fed into the box
they find themselves today. Perhaps the term ‘terrible’ is in
the eye of the beholder. Many people made a lot of money in
stocks and real estate during the past two decades of
super-bubble. The inflation genie was initially kept in the
bottle in the form of bank capital reserves, higher asset prices
like homes and stocks… but the response to Covid19 (what’s the
survival rate again?), let the genie loose, and all the chickens
have begun coming home to roost now. The CPI and PPI (both
suppressed, cooked stats the govt concocts using intentionally
faulty methodology) are at 40+ year highs.. and this party is
just getting started. Maybe another 0.5% rate raise will tame
8%+ inflation, right Mr. Powell?
>
> We’re screwed… monetary reset on the horizon, and me and you
will get a lot poorer once these A55hole5 have their cake and
eat it too.
>
> Detective Walker- Fight Club
--- End Quote ---
SOURCE:
HTML https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/what-will-next-market-bottom-look
#Post#: 305--------------------------------------------------
The "Flash-Crash On Steroids" Scenario
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 20, 2022, 10:37 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164616-5368.jpeg
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2022 - 08:23 AM
Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
SNIPPET:
For a long time, I have been trying to develop a scenario for a
market "super crash" and a reasonable map that would arrive at
such a situation. To say I'm negative about this economy is a
gross understatement. I saw the last housing bubble coming and
predicted the crash. I continue to contend that we have never
recovered from the Great Recession or corrected the many
problems that haunt our financial systems such as derivatives
and collateralized debt obligations. By printing money,
imploding interest rates, and exploding the Federal Government's
deficit we have only delayed the "big one."
These two quotes on macroeconomic stabilization and crisis speak
volumes. First, from Macresilience;
--- Quote ---
> "As Minsky has documented, the history of macroeconomic
interventions post-WW2 has been the history of prevention of
even the smallest snapbacks that are inherent to the process of
creative destruction. The result is our current financial system
which is as taut as it can be, in a state of fragility where any
snap-back will be catastrophic."
--- End Quote ---
And next from Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan);
--- Quote ---
> "Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility
tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time
exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm
and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate
beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political
leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by
inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite."
--- End Quote ---
These quotes suggest an analogy with ideas about forest
management when natural fires are suppressed. If random fires do
not periodically clear away forest underbrush, we see a build-up
of flammable material sufficient to power a massive
conflagration. I certainly think an equivalent truth applies to
financial markets. The longer it has been since a painful
collapse, the greater the willingness to pile on leverage and
complexity, such that the next crisis becomes unmanageable. The
"Too Big To Fail" and other policies implemented since 2008 have
distorted markets across the globe and laid the 💣
groundwork for "The Big One", or what we will someday look back
on as the mother of all sell-offs.
[move]
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-270220160728.jpeghttps://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-270115141816.pnghttps://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-250815185137.pnghttps://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-280914153654.gifhttps://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-100718163624-1442258.jpeg[/move]
Over the years not only have we witnessed many cases of
government overreach and many rule changes to protect the
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422162639.gif🎩<br
/>
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-120818184306-16302042.png<br
/>system at the expense of the
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif<br
/>people.
Read more:
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164555-532108.png
HTML https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/flash-crash-steroids-scenario
#Post#: 306--------------------------------------------------
" ... most dangerous 🚩 concentration of risk
💣 in US federally-insured bank history."
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 21, 2022, 12:08 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
COUNTERPUNCH
MAY 20, 2022
BY PAM MARTENS
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122257-657398.png
<br
/>- RUSS MARTENS
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122257-657398.png
[center]
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-250718205137.gif<br
/>Jerome Powell’s
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418203402.gif<br
/>Fed in Two Frightening Charts[/center]
SNIPPET:
The largest components of the Fed’s balance sheet are the short
and intermediate term U.S. Treasury bills and notes and
long-term U.S. Treasury Bonds it has been buying up from Wall
Street since it first launched its so-called “Quantitative
Easing” or QE program following the Wall Street crash of 2008.
To a smaller extent, QE also includes the Fed buying up bundles
of federal-agency-backed mortgages (Mortgage Backed Securities,
or MBS). As of last Wednesday’s H.4.1 release, the Fed’s balance
sheet included $8.48 trillion in securities, of which Treasuries
accounted for $5.766 trillion; MBS accounted for $2.7 trillion;
and federal agency debt securities accounting for the balance.
The bulk of the Fed’s balance sheet resides at just one of its
12 regional Fed banks — the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,
known simply on
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422162639.gifWall<br
/>Street as the
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418203402.gif<br
/>New York Fed. Conveniently, the New York Fed is the only
regional Fed bank to have its own trading floors with speed
dials to Wall Street’s megabanks — one in New York and one
stealthily added in Chicago near the futures exchange. (See The
New York Fed Has Quietly Staffed Up a Second Trading Floor Near
the S&P 500 Futures Market in Chicago.
HTML https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/01/the-new-york-fed-has-quietly-staffed-up-a-second-trading-floor-near-the-sp-500-futures-market-in-chicago/)<br
/>Also, conveniently, the New York Fed oversaw the bulk of the
Fed’s trillions of dollars in bailout programs to Wall Street
during and after the 2008 financial crash as well as the
trillions the Fed made in cumulative repo loans in 2019 and
2020. (Many trillions of dollars of those repo loans occurred in
2019
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422162639.gifhttps://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145428-563469.png,<br
/>months before there was any pandemic.)
[center]
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3/thumb_3-101221182823.gif<br
/>
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422121109.gif[/center]
[center]
HTML https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Screen-Shot-2022-05-19-at-8.53.12-AM.png[/center]
By the Fed buying up trillions of dollars in debt instruments
from Wall Street, it is creating artificial demand that would
not otherwise exist. This, in turn, pushes down interest rates
and creates an artificial level of interest rates that would not
otherwise exist.
The Fed’s artificially contrived “zero-bound range” of interest
rates incentivized risk taking because it becomes easy for hedge
funds and other speculators to obtain vast sums of money to
gamble in markets at very low interest rates. (For more on that
topic, see our report from April 13 of last year: Margin Debt
Has 💥 Exploded by 49 Percent in One Year to $814
Billion. The Actual Figure May Be in the [b]Trillions. Here’s
Why[/b]
HTML https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/04/margin-debt-has-exploded-by-49-percent-in-one-year-to-814-billion-the-actual-figure-may-be-in-the-trillions-heres-why/.)<br
/>... ...
And thanks to the Fed’s history of rubber-stamping megabank
mergers, as of December 31 of last year, just six bank holding
companies (out of a total of 4,839 federally-insured commercial
banks and savings associations) hold $13.699 trillion or 61
percent of all assets of all commercial banks. (That is the most
dangerous concentration of risk in the history of
federally-insured banking in the United States.)
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145533-5671050.gif
Full article:
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164718-540294.gifhttps://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422121331.gif
HTML https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/20/jerome-powells-fed-in-two-frightening-charts/
#Post#: 320--------------------------------------------------
Next week the narrative will be "lots of people holiday
traveled ate hotdogs and stuff". Magic - everything all a
OK...
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: May 27, 2022, 1:06 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
May 27, 2022
Agelbert NOTE: We-the-people are not fooled by the
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-080419191019.png<br
/>Fed:
--- Quote ---
> Buggy
> The
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418203402.gif<br
/>Fed’s “favorite” inflation measure because it 😈
excludes
the frivolous, petty, insignificant food and energy numbers. I
have a similar approach to the possibility of flooding from a
storm. My favorite measure is how big a single raindrop is.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> Now voyager
> Core inflation has "peaked" ::): They are going to cut off
less of your leg this time than that time they cut off the most.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> aerial view
> Core PCE less than 5% leads to stock rally: hahahaha! Who
seriously believe these numbers?
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> CutTheCable
> Enter fed hedonic inflation adjustments stage right. You will
grow your hair long or shave it all off 0% increase. Food you
will eat sawdust 5%, electricity you will burn firewood and
furniture 0%, water you will not bath or shower for a week 0%
increase....
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422121435.png
HTML https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/why-stocks-are-surging-and-what-todays-core-pce-data-means-next-months-cpi-print
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