There has been much breathless discussion lately surrounding the national debt ceiling as total government debt approaches the legal limit. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said there was "no alternative" and threatened Congress with unspecified "catastrophic" consequences if the limit was not increased. Of course, he is merely following in the tradition of terroristic threats by corrupt Treasury officials.
But just as the implied threats of martial law were used by Henry Paulson as cover for one of the biggest thefts in history, we must now ask what lurks behind the current spate of threats out of Treasury? Paulson lied about what the TARP was to be used for - which is why he demanded immunity in advance. Geithner is lying about the need for an immediate increase in the debt limit. What is being hidden is many activities that aid speculators and bureaucrats that will have to end if the limit stays in place.
In the real world there is a problem that a lot of money is being spent that has nothing to do with the operations of the federal government. This can be seen clearly in the recent announcement that the Treasury will be selling off some of its $142 billion of MBS (mortgage backed securities). There really is no legitimate function of government that relates to manipulating the price of bonds. It's good that they are looking to get rid of them but there is no reason to have them in the first place other than to overpay to help sellers and also to make continuing holders look more solvent by deliberately distorting the "market" price.
Then there are the loans which Treasury has extended to the states to cover their own spending. The state unemployment funds are in hock to Washington for $46.3 billion as of March 23. This is problematic in that it undermines the constitutional requirements that many states must balance their budget every year. It also undermines the ability of the states to function as sovereign entities when they are financially so beholden to the central government. Thus it is a direct attack on the our Federal system of government.
Secretary Tim Geithner is not running a Treasury Department. He is in fact running a bank under the aegis of the federal government and Congress needs to keep that in mind as he goes begging them for more money. Treasury should not be in the business of lending money to the states or of buying private market debt. Those are functions for commercial banks and bond markets. Worse still, those banking functions have been performed using the credit of the American People. If Geithner was not playing these games, the Treasury would have another $190 billion in borrowing authority remaining.
Any increase in the debt limit should be conditional on the Treasury ceasing all interference in state finances and public financial markets.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Panic Room
We will be breaking from our normal practice of commenting on economic issues to address something that is bigger and more important today. That is growing panic over radiation from Japan. Trace levels of radioisotopes have been detected in water and food near the Fukushima plant site. In one case, it exeeded the legal limits so if you are in Japan, you should take some precautions - and especially so in Northern Japan. The governments involved have no one to blame but themselves since they have destroyed their own credibility and many people won't believe them even when they tell the truth. As of today, the truth is this:
There is no threat of radiation in North America and with a couple tiny of exceptions, there is no measurable increase above background levels.
One of the sources I see quoted often by the panic-mongers is Radnet - a data gathering program of the EPA. But most people have no idea what the data means and there are many problems with the data itself. The most serious problems with the Radnet data are as follows:
1) Collection is by volunteers and by agencies that often specialize in other things. For instance, most of the California data is gathered by regiona agencies like the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. BAAQMD certainly knows what it is doing with regard to routine air pollution issues but they are hardly specialists in radiation exposure.
2) Inconsistency of the data due to the varied and non-specialist nature of the data gatherers. The data should be comparable over time at any given location but may not be comparable between different locations gathered with varying practices.
3) Timeliness is weak. The typical collection method is to use air filters to gather particulate matter and then apply a radiation detector after a 5-hour field deployment period.
4) The data is difficult to interpret. Because of we do not know with certainty the exact equipment used to measure beta and gamma exposure at a given location, we cannot be certain what conversion factor should be used for CPM to millirems or milliseiverts.
Also, the gamma exposure is divided into energy ranges. Due to the normal slope, we can feel confident that the lower ranges are lower-energy (longer wavelength) gamma rays. This is a typical pattern for background radiation. In fact, many of the less energetic "gamma rays" detected by a typical geiger counter are not technically gamma rays at all. Quite often the detection threshold for a geiger is 20 kEv or less - at a wavelength more associated with X-rays so the lower bands of gamma reported by Radnet are actually mostly X-rays. Even so, I cannot locate a chart showing the frequency or wavelength with which each gamma energy range is associated.
Nevertheless, Radnet can be a valuable tool to measure changes over time in a single location. If better data were not available, I would be forced to use it for other purposes as well. Fortunately, we have something run by people who are focused on radiation and the only real weakness is that the network is only regional.
The Department of Energy and the Desert Research Institute maintain a network of radiation monitoring stations across Nevada and western Utah known as the Community Environmental Monitoring program. The explicit purpose of CEMP is to monitor sites downwind of the underground nuclear test site in Nevada. Thus, CEMP is "focused like a laser" on radiation. Most stations update every 10 minutes and the rest do so hourly.
The data is comparable between stations and presented in an easily analyzed format. Exposure dosages are measured in microrems per hour (uR/hr) and measured constantly. The only downside is that only gamma radiation is measured, not beta but this is not a severe drawback in my opinion. There is even a tab on the display for each monitoring station that allows you to display the data from the past week in graphical format.
I checked a sampling of the monitoring stations and all of them showed gamma radiation steady as a rock for the past week. There is NO EVIDENCE of any increase in ambient radiation in Nevada or Utah at least.
The website can be found here:
CEMP
I want everyone to be safe and informed. Don't panic out of ignornace. If the data call for you to take precautions you should absolutely do so but rationally and based on facts. Good luck.
--- dataSlave
There is no threat of radiation in North America and with a couple tiny of exceptions, there is no measurable increase above background levels.
One of the sources I see quoted often by the panic-mongers is Radnet - a data gathering program of the EPA. But most people have no idea what the data means and there are many problems with the data itself. The most serious problems with the Radnet data are as follows:
1) Collection is by volunteers and by agencies that often specialize in other things. For instance, most of the California data is gathered by regiona agencies like the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. BAAQMD certainly knows what it is doing with regard to routine air pollution issues but they are hardly specialists in radiation exposure.
2) Inconsistency of the data due to the varied and non-specialist nature of the data gatherers. The data should be comparable over time at any given location but may not be comparable between different locations gathered with varying practices.
3) Timeliness is weak. The typical collection method is to use air filters to gather particulate matter and then apply a radiation detector after a 5-hour field deployment period.
4) The data is difficult to interpret. Because of we do not know with certainty the exact equipment used to measure beta and gamma exposure at a given location, we cannot be certain what conversion factor should be used for CPM to millirems or milliseiverts.
Also, the gamma exposure is divided into energy ranges. Due to the normal slope, we can feel confident that the lower ranges are lower-energy (longer wavelength) gamma rays. This is a typical pattern for background radiation. In fact, many of the less energetic "gamma rays" detected by a typical geiger counter are not technically gamma rays at all. Quite often the detection threshold for a geiger is 20 kEv or less - at a wavelength more associated with X-rays so the lower bands of gamma reported by Radnet are actually mostly X-rays. Even so, I cannot locate a chart showing the frequency or wavelength with which each gamma energy range is associated.
Nevertheless, Radnet can be a valuable tool to measure changes over time in a single location. If better data were not available, I would be forced to use it for other purposes as well. Fortunately, we have something run by people who are focused on radiation and the only real weakness is that the network is only regional.
The Department of Energy and the Desert Research Institute maintain a network of radiation monitoring stations across Nevada and western Utah known as the Community Environmental Monitoring program. The explicit purpose of CEMP is to monitor sites downwind of the underground nuclear test site in Nevada. Thus, CEMP is "focused like a laser" on radiation. Most stations update every 10 minutes and the rest do so hourly.
The data is comparable between stations and presented in an easily analyzed format. Exposure dosages are measured in microrems per hour (uR/hr) and measured constantly. The only downside is that only gamma radiation is measured, not beta but this is not a severe drawback in my opinion. There is even a tab on the display for each monitoring station that allows you to display the data from the past week in graphical format.
I checked a sampling of the monitoring stations and all of them showed gamma radiation steady as a rock for the past week. There is NO EVIDENCE of any increase in ambient radiation in Nevada or Utah at least.
The website can be found here:
CEMP
I want everyone to be safe and informed. Don't panic out of ignornace. If the data call for you to take precautions you should absolutely do so but rationally and based on facts. Good luck.
--- dataSlave
Friday, February 4, 2011
(F)Rebasing
Obviously there is a pretty bad discrepancy between those numbers in this morning's edition of blowing sunshine up your skirt from the Ministry of Truth.
current employment report
Given the size of the country, it SHOULD take 600k jobs to move the rate that much so obviously there's a problem here. How did this happen? Dig a bit deeper and you'll see that they simply defined 504k out of the labor force from December to January and rounding did the rest. Wave a wand and define those people out of existence. If they don't exist, they can't be unemployed now can they?
If you look at the chart, you'll see that they did the same thing in December from November. In that case only 260k unemployed people disappeared from the statistics. There is a clear and systemic effort to deceive the public about the state of the economy and it's getting worse.
latest household data
But there's is an even bigger deception in the numbers that helps to reveal the systemic fraud of the numbers. Last month the B(L)S claimed that their establishment survey measured 130,712k employed:
But THIS month they show 130,265k employed and claim that it is an increase of 36k, rather than the massive drop of 447k that it actually is. They did this by altering history. Now, the record shows that 130,229k were working in December and the rest of those people have disappeared down the memory hole. It wouldn't be a concern if the revisions were random but the pattern is very consistent - almost perfectly so. Report good news now and back away later. This is the same game played with corporate earnings to deceive investors. Loudly trumpet "good" current results. Then quietly go back later and revise them down. Then use the revised numbers to show "growth" with the next fraudulent set of numbers.
The B(L)S calls this rebasing. Corporations call it a "one time charge" but it's the same scam. The objective in both cases is to mislead the public. It's nothing more than fraud with the goal of getting the public to buy the hopium of the confidence game. That's why I think that freebasing is a more appropriate name.
current employment report
Given the size of the country, it SHOULD take 600k jobs to move the rate that much so obviously there's a problem here. How did this happen? Dig a bit deeper and you'll see that they simply defined 504k out of the labor force from December to January and rounding did the rest. Wave a wand and define those people out of existence. If they don't exist, they can't be unemployed now can they?
If you look at the chart, you'll see that they did the same thing in December from November. In that case only 260k unemployed people disappeared from the statistics. There is a clear and systemic effort to deceive the public about the state of the economy and it's getting worse.
latest household data
But there's is an even bigger deception in the numbers that helps to reveal the systemic fraud of the numbers. Last month the B(L)S claimed that their establishment survey measured 130,712k employed:
But THIS month they show 130,265k employed and claim that it is an increase of 36k, rather than the massive drop of 447k that it actually is. They did this by altering history. Now, the record shows that 130,229k were working in December and the rest of those people have disappeared down the memory hole. It wouldn't be a concern if the revisions were random but the pattern is very consistent - almost perfectly so. Report good news now and back away later. This is the same game played with corporate earnings to deceive investors. Loudly trumpet "good" current results. Then quietly go back later and revise them down. Then use the revised numbers to show "growth" with the next fraudulent set of numbers.
The B(L)S calls this rebasing. Corporations call it a "one time charge" but it's the same scam. The objective in both cases is to mislead the public. It's nothing more than fraud with the goal of getting the public to buy the hopium of the confidence game. That's why I think that freebasing is a more appropriate name.
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Permanent Bailout
Milton Friedman once said that "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The central banks, as rogue private bodies exercising governmental powers a proving that axiom true yet again. The Federal Reserve claimed yesterday that we are in a recovery but none of their emergency programs can be rolled back.
The question sort of answers itself. The bailouts are throwing good money after bad as every one of these banks is so far underwater they can't even see the surface from here. Without honest accounting, we have no idea just how deep that hole is but it certainly looks like a bottomless pit from here. It's been stunningly clear for a while now that so much bad debt needed to be purged from the system but the central and TBTF banks have made every effort to PREVENT such a purge.
(Wall) Street Corner Hustle
The latest brainstorm from the ECB is exactly the same sort of shell game. Greece and Ireland can't pay the money back and they know it. Instead of acknowledging reality, we'll just convert it into a long-term "loan" so they don't have to pay it back within the term and maybe even the lifetime of the people making the decisions. It can't be paid back and it won't be paid back but maybe they can keep up the lies for a little while longer.
This is simply more Extend and Pretend so that they can keep trying to fool people into impoverishing themselves by overspending and taking on too much debt to keep up the illusion. That is the meaning of "prosperity" in a keynesian ponzi economy. You use inflation to convince people to eat their seed corn, making them feel better - for a little while. This is why central bankers place so much emphasis on "confidence" - in practical terms that measures the willingness of the population to deplete their capital and eat their seed corn due to the inflationary deception of the central banks.
The UDB gave us the biggest illusion of false prosperity the world has ever seen. The bankers are now trying to cover their tracks and delay the inevitable hoping you'll forget their complicity. But the best simple summation can be found from the creators of South Park:
Meanwhile, over in Europe, there is growing recognition that the bailouts have failed and that the money isn't going to be paid back. Instead of actually admitting anything of the sort, the ECB is now talking about effectively making the loans permanent. Sure, they SAY it's going to be a 30 year loan instead of 3 years but if Ireland and Greece can't pay the money back now and continue to run deficits, what makes anyone think they'll be in a better position to pay it back later?... the Committee decided today to continue expanding its holdings of securities as announced in November. In particular, the Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings and intends to purchase $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011.
The question sort of answers itself. The bailouts are throwing good money after bad as every one of these banks is so far underwater they can't even see the surface from here. Without honest accounting, we have no idea just how deep that hole is but it certainly looks like a bottomless pit from here. It's been stunningly clear for a while now that so much bad debt needed to be purged from the system but the central and TBTF banks have made every effort to PREVENT such a purge.
(Wall) Street Corner Hustle
The latest brainstorm from the ECB is exactly the same sort of shell game. Greece and Ireland can't pay the money back and they know it. Instead of acknowledging reality, we'll just convert it into a long-term "loan" so they don't have to pay it back within the term and maybe even the lifetime of the people making the decisions. It can't be paid back and it won't be paid back but maybe they can keep up the lies for a little while longer.
This is simply more Extend and Pretend so that they can keep trying to fool people into impoverishing themselves by overspending and taking on too much debt to keep up the illusion. That is the meaning of "prosperity" in a keynesian ponzi economy. You use inflation to convince people to eat their seed corn, making them feel better - for a little while. This is why central bankers place so much emphasis on "confidence" - in practical terms that measures the willingness of the population to deplete their capital and eat their seed corn due to the inflationary deception of the central banks.
The UDB gave us the biggest illusion of false prosperity the world has ever seen. The bankers are now trying to cover their tracks and delay the inevitable hoping you'll forget their complicity. But the best simple summation can be found from the creators of South Park:
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Law
Here at Financial Jenga we have hoped, even prayed for the law to be enforced for the last couple of years. Yet the fraud has raged unchecked and if anything grown worse. Banks have mass filed false affidavits to fraudulently seize houses through the foreclosure process and then said "oopps, we made a technical paperwork error" when caught. At first they got away with it. They HAVE seized houses through this procedure when there was no mortgage and no lien at all.
The Fed has gone and done things far beyond the scope of authority given to it by Congress - like using our money to prop up the investment banks and the stock fraud they are running. They are given the power to buy exactly two thing - bonds carrying the full guarantee of the US government and short-term loans for planting of crops. Buying junk bonds containing mortgages violates both the letter and the spirit of their charter. Buying stocks is so far beyond their legal powers that someone should be in prison and probably a lot of someones.
No one has shown much sign of really stopping the Fed yet but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court landed a major blow for the law today by confirming a lower court ruling that nullified two foreclosures because they plaintiffs couldn't show they owned the property. In both cases, "robosigned" affidavits were introduced as proof of ownership and later shown to be without merit.
The state Supreme Judicial Court today upheld a judge’s decision saying two foreclosures were invalid because the banks didn’t prove they owned the mortgages, which he said were improperly transferred into two mortgage-backed trusts. As reported by Bloomberg:
While there have been many similar rulings across the country, this is the first such decision by a state supreme court. And since property law is still properly the jurisdiction of the states, this decision is final as far as Massachusetts is concerned. Hopefully they will follow up with prosecutions for the mass of fraud represented by those false affidavits.
And this entire financial crisis is bound up with a struggle to centralize political power in Washington. One of the key enablers of the late-bubble madness was the effective nullification of state lending regulations. This was done in 2004 when the Office of Comptroller of the Currency used federal preemption to overrule state laws against predatory lending. It was one of the worst moments of the Bush Administration:
So basically, the OCC's action wiped out state legal protections against predatory lending. And they substituted a finger wagging "don't do it" with a nudge and a wink to just go ahead. And of course the very worst mortgage paper was written over the next three years after the change. We have documented the results of those no-doc, alt-A and option ARM loans here from the very beginning. But those abusive mortgages would not have been possible without Washington stepping in to remove the legal shield that states provided their citizens.
The Fed has gone and done things far beyond the scope of authority given to it by Congress - like using our money to prop up the investment banks and the stock fraud they are running. They are given the power to buy exactly two thing - bonds carrying the full guarantee of the US government and short-term loans for planting of crops. Buying junk bonds containing mortgages violates both the letter and the spirit of their charter. Buying stocks is so far beyond their legal powers that someone should be in prison and probably a lot of someones.
No one has shown much sign of really stopping the Fed yet but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court landed a major blow for the law today by confirming a lower court ruling that nullified two foreclosures because they plaintiffs couldn't show they owned the property. In both cases, "robosigned" affidavits were introduced as proof of ownership and later shown to be without merit.
The state Supreme Judicial Court today upheld a judge’s decision saying two foreclosures were invalid because the banks didn’t prove they owned the mortgages, which he said were improperly transferred into two mortgage-backed trusts. As reported by Bloomberg:
“We agree with the judge that the plaintiffs, who were not the original mortgagees, failed to make the required showing that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of foreclosure,” Justice Ralph D. Gants wrote.
While there have been many similar rulings across the country, this is the first such decision by a state supreme court. And since property law is still properly the jurisdiction of the states, this decision is final as far as Massachusetts is concerned. Hopefully they will follow up with prosecutions for the mass of fraud represented by those false affidavits.
And this entire financial crisis is bound up with a struggle to centralize political power in Washington. One of the key enablers of the late-bubble madness was the effective nullification of state lending regulations. This was done in 2004 when the Office of Comptroller of the Currency used federal preemption to overrule state laws against predatory lending. It was one of the worst moments of the Bush Administration:
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Feb. 21 published for comment a ruling that Georgia's predatory lending law, the Georgia Fair Lending Act (GFLA), is preempted for national banks.
At the same time, it issued two advisory letters to national banks to clarify its expectations for banks to avoid involvement with "predatory" lending practices.
So basically, the OCC's action wiped out state legal protections against predatory lending. And they substituted a finger wagging "don't do it" with a nudge and a wink to just go ahead. And of course the very worst mortgage paper was written over the next three years after the change. We have documented the results of those no-doc, alt-A and option ARM loans here from the very beginning. But those abusive mortgages would not have been possible without Washington stepping in to remove the legal shield that states provided their citizens.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Pension Seizure Precedents
One of the problems with out of control government spending is the way it affects the behavior of government itself. Like any other junkie, the government convinces itself it needs "just one more" fix and will do anything to get it. Again like a junkie, the government will prostitute itself and steal from friends and family to keep the drug supply coming.
We see a glaring example of the later when governments simply grab private property in order to pay off their own debts. We have already seen the precedent for pensions being seized by government. Just last week in Hungary the government grabbed $14 billion in private assets. Over the weekend, the Irish government decided to take 15 billion Euros from the future pensions of its citizens to give to the banks. Now France is taking 36 billion Euros from the pension fund to keep its bloated and unsustainable welfare state afloat for just a little while longer.
People need to understand that the United States is not immune to the same financial pressures that caused Hungary, Ireland and France to take these desperate measures. If you are counting on a future pension from the state, you might wish to start making alternate plans. In most states, there is effectively zero chance that you will get everything promised - the state government pension funds are already over $1 trillion in the hole. The gap will only grow as additional obligations are incurred but little new money is available to meet them from the state budget side. It would be completely unsurprising if the more desperate and foolish states attempted to raid these pension funds to "invest" in more unemployment payouts or other attempts to fund general budget spending.
Of course we won't have that problem with Social Security since it is funded entirely by current taxes. Since no such pension fund exists, we don't have to worry about the government grabbing it. Of course that raises the question of which assets the will try to take since the same financial imperatives and the same junkie behavior are at work in Washington as in Budapest, Dublin and Paris. That said, we need to be vigilant for any sign that similar asset seizures are imminent here in the United States since the precedent has already been set. We have been warned by events across the pond.
We see a glaring example of the later when governments simply grab private property in order to pay off their own debts. We have already seen the precedent for pensions being seized by government. Just last week in Hungary the government grabbed $14 billion in private assets. Over the weekend, the Irish government decided to take 15 billion Euros from the future pensions of its citizens to give to the banks. Now France is taking 36 billion Euros from the pension fund to keep its bloated and unsustainable welfare state afloat for just a little while longer.
People need to understand that the United States is not immune to the same financial pressures that caused Hungary, Ireland and France to take these desperate measures. If you are counting on a future pension from the state, you might wish to start making alternate plans. In most states, there is effectively zero chance that you will get everything promised - the state government pension funds are already over $1 trillion in the hole. The gap will only grow as additional obligations are incurred but little new money is available to meet them from the state budget side. It would be completely unsurprising if the more desperate and foolish states attempted to raid these pension funds to "invest" in more unemployment payouts or other attempts to fund general budget spending.
Of course we won't have that problem with Social Security since it is funded entirely by current taxes. Since no such pension fund exists, we don't have to worry about the government grabbing it. Of course that raises the question of which assets the will try to take since the same financial imperatives and the same junkie behavior are at work in Washington as in Budapest, Dublin and Paris. That said, we need to be vigilant for any sign that similar asset seizures are imminent here in the United States since the precedent has already been set. We have been warned by events across the pond.
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Shadow Knows
Today's topic is Shadow Inventory - the foreclosed or soon to be foreclosed properties that banks are stuck with and which are not listed for sale. As a result, they are not found in any formal listing of housing inventory when existing home sales are reported. This has been a problem for a long time, as we mentioned many months ago in Household De-formation.
The media's silence on this issue has been almost total. Probably because any reasonable discussion of the topic would severely undermine the illusion of stability they are trying to project. This weekend, the Wall Street Journal took a stab at estimating the damage. Their conclusion is that it would take 107 MONTHS to clear the shadow inventory at current sales rates. Obviously not a number that the bankers and their apologists in government and media are anxious to publicize.
But the good news is that we can expect the housing market to start to recover - in another eight or nine years.
The media's silence on this issue has been almost total. Probably because any reasonable discussion of the topic would severely undermine the illusion of stability they are trying to project. This weekend, the Wall Street Journal took a stab at estimating the damage. Their conclusion is that it would take 107 MONTHS to clear the shadow inventory at current sales rates. Obviously not a number that the bankers and their apologists in government and media are anxious to publicize.
The government "assistance" was never going to help many people, much less actually succeed on a large scale. However, it was helpful for the banks - aiding them in concealing the collapse of their collateral for another year or so (i.e. another Bonus Cycle).Over the summer, banks appeared to be making some headway. The government’s mortgage-modification program helped some people get current on their payments, taking their homes out of the foreclosure pipeline. At the same time, homebuyer tax credits helped boost sales. Combined real and shadow inventory fell to 91 months of sales in May.
Lately, though, a new wave of defaults appears to be coming in, in part related to the high rate of failures on government modifications. As of September, some 1.9 million homeowners had missed one payment on their mortgages, up 14% from March. Meanwhile, home sales have slowed sharply with the end of government stimulus.
But the good news is that we can expect the housing market to start to recover - in another eight or nine years.
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