Posts Tagged ‘global economy’

#TPP & Me

Posted: September 19, 2016 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Excess and Algorithms
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tpp

By @anarchyroll

Current events and news topics don’t come much more complex and far-reaching than the TPP. The entire thing has been constructed in the shadows of backrooms under the table off the record. Everything that is publicly known about it doesn’t even count as a starting point for the ramifications of this deal.

Sound like hyperbole and conspiracy theory fringe? Then why is this not a topic covered on nightly news? This trade deal if passed will affect millions of people. Forget pro or con, there is no denying that millions of lives will be effected by legislative change that the Trans Pacific Partnership will bring. So why not cover it at depth like a news story or event? Does it not warrant similar coverage to the 2016 Presidential Election, Rio Olympics, or Harambe’s death?

International free trade deals are certainly no naked, lubed-up Kim Kardashian holding a champagne bottle. Butt, NAFTA wasn’t considered a sexy issue until it bubbled up in the 2008 Democratic party primary debates. Sometimes people just need to get warmed up and have a few drinks before something dry and dense becomes cute and sexy.

The TPP got moved from the shadows of being one of those third tier news stories on a newspaper website that is so far down the page the text isn’t bold, highlighted, or even a larger font size ; to stealing some of President Obama’s thunder during his speech at the DNC.

 So what does all of this mean? Who gives a shit about the TPP? Why would anyone who isn’t in the 1% care about some international trade deals off the record, earmark ramifications? Does this whole thing not scream of white people problems?
If I had answers, I wouldn’t just have a blog. But the questions anyone and everyone who reads this or any piece of writing involving the TPP needs to ask themselves are;

  1. Why was the TPP constructed and negotiated in secret?
  2. Why are environmentalists and labor unions passionately against it?
  3. Why would Democrats protest it during Obama’s last major speech as President?

The TPP has more questions than answers. That tends to happen when a massive bill with massive legislations is bred and conceived in secret. The TPP is to trade what the Patriot Act is to civil liberties. With the TPP though there is no act of economic terrorism to induce its passage into permanent fruition. Mainly because the economic terrorists of the world are the rich white folks in mansions as opposed to terrorism’s impoverished brown folks in caves.

The TPP is so shady to its core that it is probably the one issue that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton agree on during this 2016 campaign season. The bill has been declared all but dead in terms of passage this year. So again the question is, who gives a shit? Why does this matter?

The TPP is a symbol. Both literally and metaphorically.

Literally, on the record, it is a symbol towards China.

Metaphorically, the TPP has come to represent globalization itself. Much like communism and laissez faire capitalism it reads well on paper and sounds good in theory as a utopia of equality. In practice however, it’s just another means of exploitation for the 1% to get richer and the 99% to get poorer. Something this big requires the most transperancy. The fact it has been treated with the least, makes it’s intent see through. The TPP’s hush hush, secret negotiations speak so loudly, it’s legalese need not be orated.

The #China Bubble

Posted: May 28, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoby @anarchyroll
5/27/2014

What happens when the country that we borrow from needs to borrow from someone?

China is starting to see companies collapse and borrowing go up. Why should you care?

Because the United States of America is dependent on China whether we want to be or not, whether people know it or not. China now has to spend $4 to make a $1.

If China goes through a depression or a recession or even something resembling a recession, we are going to feel the negative effects here at home. Not just because they buy so much of our government debt, but because China is responsible for 1/3 of global economic input according to the article linked to above.

There’s no need to panic or ring a doomsday alarm. But China is in a debt crisis.When that language/terminology is used there must be cause for concern in the name of financial responsibility and fiduciary duty. Why is that the case? Why should you care about this?

China owns $1 Trillion with a T of US Government Debt.

That may not seem like a lot when you see the total amount of government debt. But a trillion dollars is a trillion dollars no matter how economists may try to justify it to themselves. Anytime a trillion dollars is involved, it’s safe to say that an eye and an ear should be paid to it at all times. Especially when a margin call from China could put us on a bullet train to a 2008 sequel. The sequel is never better than the original, but let’s keep this one in the territory of Casablanca and Old School and let the original stand alone with the test of time.

No Black Bars for #WallStreet White Collars

Posted: May 23, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoajclogo2by @anarchyroll
5/22/2014

How many people went to jail for causing the 2008 economic collapse of not just the United States, but the entire global economy?

I thought the answer was zero, it turns out I was wrong. The answer is one, one person from Wall Street went to jail post 2008.

It’s not just an income inequality gap that exists and is expanding in America, there is also a judicial inequality gap. Since I’m white I’ve only noticed this recently. If I was a minority I would have likely not just written about the disparity, but would have been arrested and put in jail already.

Graph courtesy of Project.org

In America, white-collar criminal really is a double entendre. One for the type of crime, a second for the race of the criminal.

Though maybe it is time to update the image and the term. Something more appropriate would be green collar crime. Though the fact that almost all of the white-collar corporate CEO’s were/are white; it is the quantity of dead presidents in their offshore bank account that is the blade to their prison term skate.

What does it say about us as a society that we allow this kind of disparity to justice to become the norm? Is the damage caused by the architects of the ’08 collapse greater than, equal to, or less than the robbery of a single person? How about the rape of a single person? The murder of a single person? Selling drugs to a single person?

I’m not pretending to have an answer here. I am certainly not standing on a pedestal.

Was the damage caused by World Com and Enron akin to a serial robber? A serial killer? A serial rapist? A drug kingpin? How do we measure the collateral damage? Is the death by stabbing of a man in his early twenties different from a retiree who finds out they have lost all of their money in a Ponzi scheme and is destitute without the physical ability to earn for the rest of their life?

What about the people who kill themselves due to an economic depression? What if they have spouses and children? Is their loss, pain, and suffering different from a woman who gets robbed and raped at gun point walking home from the train station?

When entire neighborhoods and towns are put into foreclosure. Hundreds, thousands, millions without work, shelter, food, water, or hope for the future…are the people responsible for causing so much human tragedy somehow less evil, deserving less scorn, and less judicial prosecution than a teenager who runs over a kid while texting and driving? What about drinking and driving?

When blood is spilled, lives taken, innocence stolen in violent crimes we as a society hunt down the criminals, lock them up, throw away the key, and turn the other cheek while they are habitually raped in prison. Victims of violent crimes and their families are forever changed, unable to ever fill the hole created by an evil person that took something that can never be given back.

But is that psychological damage not shared by victims of massive financial crimes against society like in 2008? When we aren’t talking about a single person losing a job or life’s savings but a large percentage of the global population. Are the strains placed on society not akin to that placed on the immediate friends and families of violent crimes?

If not, can we at least as a society agree that we should lock up hedge fund managers, investment bankers, and Ponzi schemers that cause global recessions and depressions as strictly and regularly as we lock up drug dealers and users?

#China’s Great Wall of Recession

Posted: March 15, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoajclogo2

by @anarchyroll
3/14/2014

China’s influence on the global economy is well documented. If you don’t know what it is; since the mid 1990s China has basically become the straw that stirs the drink that is the global economy. Why? After all Europe as a whole and the United States are technically bigger players with more liquidity in the markets.

The reasons are how much money has been moving into China because of their precedent busting annual economic growth rates, in addition to their purchasing of US government debt. All major international economic players have been investing in China two decades, and they basically own the United States the way a bank owns your mortgage or your credit card debt. China is the world economic HBIC whether people like to admit it or not, and they don’t.

They don’t like admitting it, but they’ll put their money there. Manufacturing, real estate, consumer goods purchases, GDP, and every economic indicator in China has been going one direction since the Clinton administration, up…until now.

To maintain their status of belles of the ball in addition to maintain what has appeared to be unmaintainable growth rates, China’s government has essentially been cooking the books to make their economy look stronger than it actually is. Ironically their downfall may be identical to the downfall of the US economy circa 2008, real estate.

Last season on VICE on HBO, the ghost cities of China were explored and showcased in crystal clear high-definition for the world to see. The Chicago Tribune recently did a feature on Chicago architecture firms building skyscraper after skyscraper in an architectural arms race in the new metropolises of China. The very well researched and written article showed the highlights and low lights of the urban migration of the Chinese population. Some of those low lights included more ghost buildings, ghost towns, unemployment, and environmental problems.

The economic numbers on paper aren’t matching up with the physical reality of the external world. Wow, I guess China is becoming more like the US every day. I kid, I kid, they are actually becoming more like Japan every day by taking steps very similar to that of the Lost Decade.

The other economic catastrophe shoe may be getting ready to drop. Although GDP growth grew, it is at its slowest pace in 15 years. Manufacturing and trade are both down, two cornerstones of China’s economic darling status. The only things that are sharply moving up are industrial bankruptcies and inflation.

If you’re still reading you’re probably wondering why you should give a shit. The answer to that is simple. If China goes into a recession or depression, so does the rest of the first world because anyone who invests has money tied up in China.  If a run on the bank occurs in China, what is to stop them from doing a margin call on the US debt they’ve been purchasing since the 90s? And if that happens, what exactly happens?

It may not be time to move all of your money into canned tomato soup and shotguns…yet. But it looks more and more like buying American may not just be for cars and furniture anymore. It might be time for anyone with a mutual fund to make sure their assets aren’t being remedied with any eastern medicine.

#TaxCode Changes Put on the Table

Posted: March 1, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoajclogo2by @anarchyroll
2/27/2014

There are very few things that can actually change the American and/or global economy. The reason there are few things is because each one is not just big but gigantic in scope, nature, and application apparatus. A overhaul of the US tax code has been proposed by Michigan Republican David Camp of Michigan.

The banks hate it, retailers love it, Democrats say it’s dead on arrival, and Republicans aren’t really saying anything since it involves raising taxes on top earners. But it is a start, it is a physical, tangible bill, put on the table. The White House has acknowledged at least that much.

Many tax exemptions and tax breaks would be eliminated. Taxes would go down for individuals but go up for companies and corporations that earn X number of dollars. Income earned from investments would be taxed more which is very important. But there are multiple aspects that will prevent it from going anywhere, but it’s a start.

979 pages, which is the length of the bill, doesn’t exactly scream…simplified. But there must be a starting point on this issue, there must. The tax code in the United States is ridiculous and causes more problems than it solves. It favors the rich and hurts the poor. Too much money is hidden, sheltered, and shipped offshore, all of which must end.

Warren Buffet has famously said he should not pay a lower marginal tax rate than his secretary. The fact that is currently the norm, tells you all you need to know about the current tax code and tax policy in the United States. David Camps starting point is truly nothing more than a starting point but you can’t walk before you crawl. Camp’s bill begins the crawl forward, and forward is always the way to go.

#QE = Economic Crack III : Pusher in Charge

Posted: February 4, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoby @anarchyroll
2/1/2014

Part One  |  Part Two

Ex cons have a hard time getting jobs in America due to a stigma that they can’t be trusted due to past actions. Even though going through the incarceration process is supposed to bring you the other end rehabilitated with a clean slate, the reality of the situation is often quite the opposite. It also often only applies to racial minorities who commit blue collar crimes as opposed to white collar criminals who not only don’t go to jail but often barely get a metaphoric slap on the wrist.  In the spirit of the latter example, Janet Yellen is the new Fed Chief.

Janet Yellen is a much better choice than Larry Summers.  Summers is one of the forgotten architects of the 2008 economic collapse thanks to his economic policy of derivatives deregulation during the Clinton administration during the 1990s.  Summers was thought to be getting the job last year before the liberal wing of the Democratic party threatened rebellion in the midterm elections if it happened.

Ben Bernanke who Yellen is replacing, well he is to the economy what George W Bush is to national security.  9/11 happened on Bush’s watch, the 2008 collapse happened on Bernanke’s watch, that’s all you need to know.

Janet Yellen was recently featured in a TIME magazine cover story since she is about to become the most powerful person in the economic world. Why does she fit into the Quantitative Easing conversation? Two reasons. One, she helped create it in 2010. Two, she will be responsible for the tapering (fading out of) and ending of it. But do drug dealers and drug addicts often voluntarily quit their habit? Or do they continuously justify their habit to themselves?

Yellen and QE have been, are presently, and will be in the future tied together for better and for worse.  Wall Street has benefited immensely from QE. The massive bond buying program has held down interest rates (QE’s stated intent).  This has allowed the casino that is the stock market to function smoothly and at times on steroids, seeing unprecedented highs.

But these highs are drug induced. When a person does blow, crack, or meth they get an intense high for a limited amount of time.  Someone who drops acid sees walls melt and a new world of colors birth before their very eyes. But these things do not last, because they are induced by an outside substance.  The crash afterwards can be brutal, even from a simple alcohol or marijuana high. The high may feel real, but not as real as the hangover.

The American economy was high after the recovery from the dot com bubble burst. Deregulation, default swaps, and derivatives were the drug of choice of the early 2000s and the high was tremendous making houses as affordable as cars, cars as affordable as vacations, and vacations as affordable as a credit card induced weekend shopping spree. The hangover that started in 2008 was and is very real. Make no mistake we are still in recession, the recovery is false.

The recovery is false because it is also drug induced, stock market highs snorted, smoked, and shot up thanks to quantitative easing.  Asset bubbles have been created, inflation is inevitable, and any time tapering is stated or hinted at the stock market nose dives.

Tapering is occurring at about $5 to $10 billion a month, which is a good thing.  Yellen has publically stated her support for stricter economic regulation and has the backing of Elizabeth Warren.  My concern is that Yellen is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In addition to being an architect of the current quantitative easing policy written about here, she is also proponent of trickle-down economics or Reaganomics.

The last paragraph of her TIME interview is a quote which that TIME tries to spin as “a rising tide can lift all boats” and then point out that phrase was first used by President Kennedy.  The problem is Yellen states that the purpose of QE is directly tied to trickle-down theory. The more money rich people have, the more they will spend, and that will mean more money for the poor by osmosis.  Aka when a drunk person drinks a lot, they’ll piss a lot more. QE is nothing more than a tax cut substitute in the Reaganomics equation. She claims to have main street on her mind, but her economic actions indicate she is looking out for the people at the top, hoping their crumbs become big enough to feed the poor when they trickle down after their hedge fund has enough capital freed up to buy another section of homes.

Better than Larry Summers? Yes. Does she deserve some time as the Fed Chair to prove herself? Yes. But QE is her baby. The stock market and unemployment numbers are her master.  She is going to nurture her baby and serve her master as long as they are tied together.  And all economic indicators show that QE is directly tied to stock market gains and losses as well as the unemployment numbers.  Yellen has stated as long as unemployment remains high, QE will remain.

Drug cartel kingpins tend not to be at the forefront of legalization movements. Why? Because the status quo makes them rich.  Janet Yellen helped devise QE and now she’s in charge of ending it? Next thing you know you’re going to tell me the insurance companies helped write the Affordable Health Care Act…..

#QE = Economic Crack Part 2

Posted: January 28, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoby @anarchyroll
1/28/2014

Click Here for Part One

Getting high, if it wasn’t fun, why would so many people do it? The only problem is that the high doesn’t last forever. The come down is often a crash, back to reality, damnit there’s still the law of gravity. Oh no, the stash is gone. What to do? Face life and the world as it is? Okay, but only for as long as it takes to get the next hit.

The sky was falling in the fall of 2008.  Not just millions, not just billions, but TRILLIONS of dollars evaporated from the global economy.  The wound wasn’t just opened, it was hemorrhaging blood.  What to do? Let the free market run free until it corrected itself?  Use taxpayer money to try and plug the leak? Bomb another middle eastern country?

Desperation causes people to do things that they don’t fully understand. Under intense stress and scrutiny many human beings seek a temporary escape from reality in mind or mood altering chemical substances produced naturally or artificially known to many simply as drugs.  Coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, molly, mushrooms, lsd. cocaine, heroin, meth, crack.  Those who shake their head and thumb their nose at drug users often substitute adrenaline, food, binge screen watching, and other socially accepted mind altering reality escapes in place of the illicit stuff, but it’s all the same.

The federal government and federal reserve bank of the United States of America is run by human beings. Human beings susceptible to the same highs, lows, pros, cons, disciplines, and vices as you and me.  In the midst of panic, desperation, and catastrophe a series of steps were taken to stop the economic bleeding, stabilize the markets, and attempt to spur future growth.  However, the policies were all nothing more than reality escaping substances on a meta scale.

First came TARP. Then came the auto industry bailout.  Those got the headlines and the public ire or support depending if you’re a political elephant or jackass.  However another, much less sexy, but equally if not more important was the Federal Reserve Bank’s $85 billion per month bond buying program known as Quantitative Easing.

There have been three waves of QE from 2009 through present, it is expected to end in 2015.  But if it’s expected to end clean, at a predetermined time, why the drug analogy?

The problem, is that the markets have become dependent, on the fed flooding the market with cash, now there is a new bubble, that could bring the market(s) down in flames.

So the withdrawal pains, in the form of inflation and higher interest rates, could cause a relapse into recession or worse for both the US and global economy.  QE has been like an alcoholic going to rehab and starting a two pack a day cigarette habit.  Our recovery has been artificially enhanced by QE. We haven’t quit cold turkey, we’re on synthetic drugs. It isn’t until all the meds are out of our system that we’ll know if the economy has recovered or not.

Where does QE go from here?  I’ll cover that in part 3…