Jackson fans offered souvenir ticket for planned London gigs

I wonder how many people will fall for this?

Give up your money in exchange for some worthless junk.

The concert promoters for Michael Jackson's planned shows at the O2 Arena in London today offered fans the option of a "specially created" souvenir ticket rather than a refund.

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Negative Equity in Ireland

It's pretty bad here, but I didn't realise this bad.

And it looks like negative equity is here for some time. According to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), those who bought a house in 2003 will have to wait another four years before they move out of negative equity, while those who bought close to the peak in 2007 will have to wait until 2030.

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End of the Dollar

Three linked articles on the end of the dollar (I feel like one of those, 'the end is nigh' guys)

The American Empire Is Bankrupt

This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.

Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.

De-Dollarisation

When China and other countries recycle their dollar inflows by buying US Treasury bills to “invest” in the United States, this buildup is not really voluntary. It does not reflect faith in the U.S. economy enriching foreign central banks for their savings, or any calculated investment preference, but simply a lack of alternatives. “Free markets” US-style hook countries into a system that forces them to accept dollars without limit. Now they want out.

The Game is over: There Won't be a Rebound

MH: The idea that we’re even in a business “cycle” is whistling in the dark. To think of the economy being in a cycle is to imply an automatic recovery is in store. This free-market idea was developed at the National Bureau of Economic Research by opponents of government regulatory policy. The fantasy is that the economy oscillates in a fairly smooth and regular sine curve. But this always has been a fiction. 19th-century writers didn’t speak of economic cycles, but rather of periodic financial crises. There is a slow buildup, and a sudden plunge, so the shape is ratchet-shaped.

It’s Finished

Very long article about the end of banking/capitalism as we know it. Worth reading

It isn’t hard to know how to slay the zombies. The only way to do it is to hold a gun to the head of the various bankers – those various guys sitting with their heads in their hands staring at balance sheets with holes in them – and force them to admit what their assets are worth, right now. Many of the banks will turn out to be insolvent. In that case the bank is nationalised, or at the very least goes into administration and receivership. Then, a number of options become available, one of the principal ones being to break the bank up into the viable part of the business, which will eventually be refloated back onto the market, and a ‘bad bank’ of dodgy assets which must be sold off (or arguably held until the values recover) in whatever way makes the most possible money for the taxpayer.

Nobody in power wants to do that. Nobody with power in the banking system, and nobody with power in government. Both the British and the American plans to help the banks are very, very, very expensive variations on the theme of sticking their fingers in their ears and loudly singing ‘La la la, I’m not listening.’ This is what’s happened so far.

[snip]

But there are four things you don’t want to have, going into the current crisis. 1. You don’t want to have had a boom based on a property bubble. 2. You don’t want to have a consumer credit bubble. 3. You don’t want to have an economy based on financial services. 4. You don’t want your government to have just gone on a massive spending spree. We have all four of those things that you don’t want.

Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over”

Bolivia is the new Saudi Arabia

Lithium the new oil!?

Erin Go Broke

I've been a long time reader of Paul Krugman of the New York times so it was kind of distressing to have him use Ireland as a "worst case" scenario.

“What,” asked my interlocutor, “is the worst-case outlook for the world economy?” It wasn’t until the next day that I came up with the right answer: America could turn Irish.

It goes downhill from there;

Meanwhile "Country Third" Tanaiste of Ireland mumbles a response

Why the crash will continue for a long while yet

Just why the whole "green shoots" thing is a crock of shit.

The financial media is abuzz with talk of a recovery as equities inch their way higher every week.
[snip]

For 19 months, Bernanke has kept a steady stream of liquidity flowing from the vault at the US Treasury to the NYSE in downtown Manhattan. The Fed has recapitalized financial institutions via its low interest rates, its multi-trillion dollar lending facilities, and its direct purchase of US sovereign debt and Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities. (Monetization) The Fed's balance sheet has become a dumping ground for all manner of toxic waste and putrid debt-instruments for which there is no active market. When foreign central banks and investors realize that US currency is backed by dodgy subprime collateral; there will be a run on the dollar followed by a stampede out of US equities. Even so, Bernanke assures his critics that "the foundations of our economy are strong".
[snip]

So far, $12 trillion has been pumped into the financial system while less than $450 billion fiscal stimulus has gone to the "real" economy where workers are struggling just to keep food on the table. The Fed's priorities are directed at the investor class not the average working Joe. Bernanke is trying to keep Wall Street happy by goosing asset values with cheap capital, but the increases to the money supply are putting more downward pressure on the dollar. The Fed chief has also begun purchasing US Treasuries, which is the equivalent of writing a check to oneself to cover an overdraft in one's own account. This is the kind of gibberish that passes as sound economic policy. The Fed is incapable if fixing the problem because the Fed is the problem.
[snip]

The banks are all playing the same game of hide-n-seek, trying to hoodwink the public into thinking they are in a stronger capital position than they really are. It's just more Wall Street chicanery papered over with vapid media propaganda. The giant brokerage houses and the financial media are two spokes on the same wheel gliding along in perfect harmony.

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An Inconvenient debt

even a stopped clock is right twice a day;



such a shame he muddies his message with pointless references to Al Gore..

Let it Die

Interesting article here (and follow up here) saying the current economic model is flawed, seriously flawed.

Speculators aren’t buying homes in which to live—they are buying houses to flip. Speculators aren’t buying corn to eat or oil to burn, but bushels to hoard and tankers to park off shore until prices rise. The fact that the speculative economy for cash and commodities accounts for over 95% of economic transactions, while people actually using money and consuming commodities constitute less than 5% tells us something important. Real supply and demand have almost nothing to do with prices. We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme.

and

Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor.

It's all very interesting, the transition would be nightmarish however.

Ireland recently embarked on the biggest social welfare scheme in it's history by handing over around €7 Billion to the Irish banks, with no guarantee it will even be enough!

Meanwhile talk of regulation grows more muted, the corporate take over seems almost complete...

Yikes

Hopefully this guy is wrong... unfortunately, it sounds plausible.

Khazin: Yes, the U.S. did create a very high standard of living by stimulating consumer demand. Generations lived without having to experience poverty. But it's impossible to live forever in debt. Household debt has now surpassed the national economy — more than $14 trillion. Now it's time to pay up. Of course, Wall Street tried to postpone this collapse. I won't go into detail about derivatives and other such financial assets, but this was just a gasp for air before an inevitable death.

Another problem in the U.S. is that powerful industries were built around this growing demand. Whatever decision Wall Street takes right now, the demand is going to fall. What will happen to these industries? In 2000, we estimated that 25 percent of the U.S. economy would disappear. Today, we think the number is closest to one-third — if not more.

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Bird & Forture Nail It

kinda long, but as usual funny.

I.O.U.S.A. Movie Trailer

looks interesting.

Decimate the (W)bankers

Seeing as the banks are getting the money a way must be devised to somehow punish them for the mess they have created. Filing criminal charges and going through the courts would probably fail as the really guilty could afford the best defense and after 10 years of enriching the barristers probably only a few junior clerks would get convicted.

So instead I propose decimation.

Every banker/lender/broker (whatever your having yourself) should be lined up.
Every tenth banker singled out and then beaten to death with clubs by the preceding nine in the line.

I'm pretty confident the surviving banks would be more careful in future as a result plus it would make everyone feel better.

the €420 billion Bank Guarantee

Even though Ireland and Irish economy are a fraction of the size of the U.S. our retarded political leaders have given the banks a guarantee roughly equal to the one the US congress rejected last week. Naturally everyone is delighted except the EU, Britain and foreign owned banks. In effect this country have rewarded the imbeciles who nearly collapsed the entire economy. Banana republic anyone?

Top 5 Reasons to Vote Against Wall Street's $700 Billion Bailout

For all the "panic" created by the credit crunch there are still very few calling for what is actually needed which is a root and branch reform of how banks/investors/hedge funds & pension funds operate. The prevailing attitude seems to be one of "give banks the money and we can all go about our business as if nothing has happened". Considering the banks created this mess it's simply staggering that we are now asked to trust their judgment about _any_ possible solution. It seems to be simply beyond the ability of most economists and pundits to question the system, like religious zealots no matter what evidence of put before them they continue to believe.

Anyway, the Top 5 Reasons to Vote Against Wall Street's $700, they all seem like good reasons to me;

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also

The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning

Dennis Kucinich responds

Seeing as every economist and pundit in Ireland is speaking of the $700 Billion bailout "deal" with reverence usually reserved for returning messiahs I'll post this set of questions by Dennis Kucinich that no one in this country thought to ask;



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Dollar to fall 90%??

Especially if the proposed bailout goes ahead.

RHINEBECK, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said.

"We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008."

"The bigger they are, the harder they'll fall," he said in an interview with New York's Hudson Valley Business Journal.

Celente -- who forecast the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the dollar's decline a year ago and gold's current rise in May -- told the newspaper the subprime mortgage meltdown was just the first "small, high-risk segment of the market" to collapse.

Derivative dealers, hedge funds, buyout firms and other market players will also unravel, he said.

Massive corporate losses, such as those recently posted by Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) and General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM), will also be fairly common "for some time to come," he said.

He said he would not "be surprised if giants tumble to their deaths," Celente said.

The Panic of 2008 will lead to a lower U.S. standard of living, he said.

A result will be a drop in holiday spending a year from now, followed by a permanent end of the "retail holiday frenzy" that has driven the U.S. economy since the 1940s, he said.

This would make those two wars of choice _really_ expensive...

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Some background on Fannie Mae

In summary;

Here is the cycle: The government invents something virtuous; the private market takes it over and loses hundreds of billions; the government then bails it out. This is best understood as socialized risk, privatized gain. Yes, the shareholders of Fannie Mae will deservedly lose a bundle -- it's always the shareholders who take a hit -- but the insiders who thought up subprime and the executives of Fannie Mae during the roaring '90s already made their pile.

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The Irish Property Market

Property is on my mind these days and it seems the bubble is well and truly over.

I "borrowed" this image from a PropertyPin article about the phases of Property decline, it appears we are in the early days of phase 4. Don't believe me? See this post at IrishPropertyWatch.

The phases of a slowdown are listed below, the dates given are for the US market but simply adding 9 months should give the Irish equivalent; According to the article we are in phase three below.

• Phase One: Home prices stop rising and buyers strike while sellers still have expectations for continued escalating values. As a result, a dramatic slowdown in activity begins. This phase started—depending on the particular market—anywhere
from August 2005 to March 2006.

• Phase Two: Activity begins to slow even more dramatically as buyers realize home prices are overvalued. Sellers start to accept some price declines; however, they do not accept the degree of pricing adjustments needed in order to generate a sale. Conversely, new home builders begin to lower prices substantially and/or provide concessions in
order to stimulate and drive demand. As a result, they become the market pricing leaders and drive prices lower. This phase of the cycle began—depending on the market—in the summer of 2006.

• Phase Three: As foreclosures escalate, thereby becoming the new price leader in the market, home prices begin to plummet at an accelerating pace. Although this stimulates some levels of activity from those buyers who have been waiting on the sidelines. For new homes, builders can no longer offer the concessions because, for any new product
they build, not only are they losing money on the lot but also on the construction costs. This is a very dangerous scenario for the economy, leads to the failure of struggling home builders and dramatically increases the loss rates for banks and mortgage
investors. We believe this phase has started over the last few months.

• Phase Four: New construction finally grinds to a halt which enables inventory levels to narrow. The market does not deviate too far from this bottom until there is employment and wage growth which reinvigorates demand to the point that it exceeds supply, therefore, causing prices to rise again. It is worth noting that this final phase can last for a period of many years and, given the excessive inventory and continued payment shocks coming out of the IO and, soon, the payment options market, it will not be short-lived.

So how much will property fall by? The diagram gives the answer but Aeshos has a post which spells it out;

Because all asset hyperinflations revert to the mean, we can expect housing prices to decline roughly 38 percent from their peak as they return to something closer to the historical rate of monetary inflation. If the rate of decline stabilizes at between 6 and 7 percent each year, the correction has about six years to go before things stabilize, leaving the FIRE economy in need of $12 trillion.