Paper vs. Real Things

13 Comments

1. Speaking of an excellent and very readable book WEB OF DEBT, here is an excellent book review:

   http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4427.shtml

2. Jose, I imagine that in The Anti Communitarian League they have a version of democracy that means one person one vote, otherwise it’s not communitarian, but fascist…

3. But…. but…. but…. Gold and Silver, like everything else, are controlled.

   I mean, what’s $4T amongst a few elites…it’s slightly more than pocket change.

4. I’d be interested in a chart that shows real wealth. Natural, technological, human health, cooperation, and happiness. Seeing how it changes over time and how it is distributed both regionally and globally would be very interesting.

   I find this chart confusing. It seems to imply that the only real wealth is gold and silver. I agree that they’re real money, but not that they’re the only real money. The chart implies that houses will evaporate like corporate bond and stock values. In that way it’s a little deceptive.

5. Hi Catherine,

   What’s the agenda?

   Check these people out for some insight:

   http://nord.twu.net/acl/about.html

   The Anti Communitarian League is a grassroots research organization which first sprouted in April of 2001, in Seattle, Washington. There were nine original members. The founders are Niki Raapana and her daughter, Nordica Friedrich. The purpose of the organization was to give voice to the small (but growing) number of individuals who oppose the communitarian system of governance.

   Since then the ACL has become primarily a research organization devoted to studying communitarian laws. Communitarian International and Regional Trade law is the law used by the WTO, CAFTA, the European Union, the African Union, the emerging Middle Eastern Union, and the U.N. It is the system for supreme law over all local and national laws. United Nations Local Agenda 21 and integration into the North American Union (NAU) requires modification of the U.S. Constitution, and all state constitutions. This integration process has been virtually hidden from the people of the world, especially Americans.

6. Henderson has been revealing the naked economics emperors and their equally intellectually-buff minions for decades. Her series of essays regarding the financial “crisis” dovetails nicely with your approach, Catherine.

   “Fast forward to the economic woes of 2008 still plaguing us today, which I had been forecasting in my editorials for InterPress Service since the late 1980s. Economists, whose narrow profit-maximizing models and misuse of mathematics had informed a generation of MBAs and aspiring hedge fund managers, are still in the saddle. They colonized the Obama administration, with Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and legions of Goldman Sachs alumni still calling the shots in favor of their Wall Street friends. Finance and its oligarchs could never have trumped governments and run their global casino without the ideological justifications provided by economic textbooks and their scientific pretensions.” –Hazel Henderson

   http://hazelhenderson.com/editorials/politics_of_economics.html

7. The reality is that EVERYTHING is an illusion.

   Don’t get attached to it. We’re just passing through.

   Try to leave the place a bit better than you found it and you can leave with a clean conscience.

8. I haven’t read the book, The Web of Debt, however, perhaps it might be worthwhile.

   http://www.webofdebt.com/

   Here’s a review of it.

   http://www.infowars.com/web-of-debt-the-inner-workings-of-the-monetary-system/

9. We are seeing stocks taking a beating now… If those continue to deteriorate, next are treasuries, and then currencies – according to the graphic, which makes sense to me. Gold seems to be a good hedge against chaos.

10. Jim Willie’s Mineset just linked to this LA Times story: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yuan3-2009apr03,1,1808437.story “China positioning its currency for a run at world supremacy”.

    Two Excerpts:

    1.”But given the risk of inflation diminishing the value of the dollar, and neither the euro nor the Japanese yen viewed as attractive alternatives, Chinese and Western analysts say they can envision the yuan becoming the dominant global currency by ***2020***.”

    [Guess this is how the US is going to become an exporting manufacturing country again, by destroying the savings of the population via inflation. We’re gonna be like Mexico in the 1980s then to relieve unemployment? Then what happens to Mexico?]

    2.”American manufacturers and politicians have long complained that China manipulates its currency to boost exports. By keeping the yuan’s value artificially low, critics say, China enables its manufacturers to sell their goods more cheaply in overseas markets. If the exchange rate — currently pegged at 6.8 yuan to the dollar — weren’t tightly set by Beijing, even Chinese analysts figure the ratio could drop to 5 yuan to the dollar.”

    [I guess that’s why Geithner said that the China was “manipulating” its currency.]

11. John Taylor Gatto once said that our culture exists as it is (like the useless school system) because market demand had to be *guaranteed.* And this artificial demand creates jobs (about half or more of the paper-pushing and speculating economy)without improving standard of living for most. My guess is elites before the 1970s became concerned with rapid global population growth and industrializing societies that always increased standard of living…making their monopolies less and less profitable.Useless jobs that did not share the wealth became the real goal. [I somewhat agree that rapid population growth can be a huge problem for resources, but am disgusted by the me-first culture that’s been created where it feels like no one has enough *time.*] A self-centered culture (and you almost have to be this way to survive or “move up” in the corporate world) also decreases the likelihood of individuals wanting families and children; why would a narcissistic people want to bring even more narcissistic children into this world?

12. Hi Catherine

    Have you read this

    AIG: Before CDS, There Was Reinsurance

    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/04/aig-before-cds-there-was-reinsurance/#more-22986

    Very interesting peice on CDS, reinsurance and the use of side letters to cook the books rather then offer insurance on defaults – ties in well with your slow burn thereoy

13. I think the ultimate scam of investing in things of no value is on the horizon. The quiet revolution, the green revolution. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a nature lover but I see it as a financial scam in the making. Eco upgrades would be done to fight against the carbon market. Whoever controls the carbon market or produces carbon credits would gain power and money. Like a legitimized replacement for shadow investments of no value, justifying them. It’s the glass of the greenhouse that keeps it warm. Chemtrails may have more to do with it than we know. So create a crisis to push through an agenda. No surprise Ted Turner bought up vast tracts of wilderness and turned other parts into wilderness. We’ll see I guess.

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