Category Archives: Corruption & Finance

Corruption concentrates wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the 99% below, and this trend has accelerated the past decades. Corrupt leaders and industries are less likely to ration food and oil as it declines, accelerating collapse. I predict that the higher the level of corruption (see corruption perceptions index at transparency.org) will make collapse faster and harsher than in less corrupt nations.  I hope future historians look at this as a factor in how nations fell during the energy crisis. Though I expect that smaller towns everywhere will do better than large cities, and where local governments are uncorrupted

Credit Rating Agencies gave bad debt AAA ratings

How banks gamed the rating system from biz.yahoo.com April 2008 Triple-A Failure Nothing sent the [credit ratings] agencies into high gear as much as the development of structured finance. As Wall Street bankers designed ever more securitized products — using … Continue reading

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Bernie Madoff

The Day the Earth Went Broke. 2008. Byron King   whiskeyandgunpowder.com What if you woke up one day and there was a flying saucer sitting in the middle of Central Park? It would change your view of the world, if not … Continue reading

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New York Times : 401K, mutual fund, brokerage fees have cost you tens of thousands of dollars

Give Fees an Inch, and They’ll Take a Mile March 1, 2014. Jeff Sommer. New York Times. [I’ve shortened and paraphrased much of the article, go to the link above to see the full article. My comments are in brackets] … Continue reading

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New York Times: Global Bond Frenzy Raises Concerns

Global Bond Frenzy Raises Concerns Feb 19, 2014. Landon Thomas. New York Times Global bond investors have financed some of the most enormous projects ever taken on by emerging economies the past few years. Now growth is faltering in many … Continue reading

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Mass Destruction from Derivatives HuffingtonPost

The Armageddon Looting Machine: The Looming Mass Destruction From Derivatives Sep 18, 2013. Ellen Brown. Increased regulation and low interest rates are driving lending from the regulated commercial banking system into the unregulated shadow banking system. The shadow banks, although … Continue reading

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Why cash is better than gold

Why people buy gold To protect against inflation That’s a good reason, but the next crash will be deflationary like the 2008 crash, when stocks, homes, oil, gold, and everything else plummeted in value. Trillions of dollars vanished overnight.  The … Continue reading

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Civil Asset Forfeiture: across the nation authorities confiscate cash & homes of innocent people

Source: Ironside AM (2016) New report finds civil asset forfeiture most heavily burdens minorities and low-income communities. Civil Rights Law & Policy Blog. Preface. Basically if you’re poor, your cash, car, home, and other property can be confiscated for no … Continue reading

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The repo market was a key reason the meltdown happened

NY Fed’s Dudley Warns that “Firesales” Could Trigger Another Financial Crisis.  Still Broken Five Years Later by Mike Whitney. Feb 21-23, 2014. Counterpunch. “The repo market wasn’t just a part of the meltdown. It was the meltdown.”  – David Weidner, … Continue reading

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Pity Brazil’s Military Police. FEB. 19, 2014. Vanessa Barbara. New York Times.

Pity Brazil’s Military Police. FEB. 19, 2014.  Vanessa Barbara. New York Times. In 2012, 1,890 Brazilians were killed by the police. 351 occurred in São Paulo — 20% of all homicides. Organized crime retaliated by killing 11 police officers and … Continue reading

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Colombia’s Warning for Mexico

Preface. This is a pattern you see over and over again in civil wars and collapsing bits of nations no longer under government control Abadfeb’s editorial reminds me of feudalism. Until the rise of state-level armies in the 17th century, … Continue reading

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