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

Banks still gambling on illegal Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLO)

Posted on April 20, 2014 by

Banks Cling to Bundles Holding Risk APRIL 19, 2014 GRETCHEN MORGENSON New York Times Some $431 billion worth of C.L.O.s currently exist. The Volcker Rule doesn’t go into effect until 2015, but that hasn’t stopped big bankers and their supporters … Continue reading →

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Fannie & Freddie started the mortgage crisis

Posted on April 16, 2014 by

Reckless Endangerment. How outsized ambition, greed, and corruption led to Economic Armageddon 2011 by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner This book makes the case that Fannie & Freddie started the mortgage crisis and then Wall Street got in on the … Continue reading →

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Gordon Long Extend & Pretend

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Gordon Long has interesting ideas about what’s going on and how to invest accordingly.  I don’t agree with all that he writes, but what he has to say sure is interesting and a good overview of the incredibly widespread corruption … Continue reading →

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We’ve been “Bankalized” Banks rule and always will

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Ilargi Nov 8, 2010 I read an article Ashvin Pandurangi, our by now greatly valued roving reporter, sent me, entitled “Plutocracy Now”. Ashvin writes about that first notion I was pondering: the nationalization of US banks, though for him it’s … Continue reading →

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Foreclosuregate

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Back-Office Blues  Nov 8, 2010. James Surowiecki. The New Yorker. In the late 1960s, Wall Street was crippled by an unlikely nemesis: unfinished paperwork. Thanks to a booming stock market, trading volume had soared in the course of the decade; … Continue reading →

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Why do people fall for Ponzi and other schemes?

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Fooled by Ponzi (and Madoff). How Bernard Madoff Made Off with My Money  Dec 23, 2008. Stephen Greenspan. Skeptic.com There are few areas of functioning where skepticism is more important than how one invests one’s life savings. Yet intelligent and … Continue reading →

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Sovereign Default predictions

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Martin Weiss on why there will be a sovereign default someday: Diversification across asset classes didn’t help in the 2008 crash. Stocks fell. Most bonds fell. Real estate fell. Commodities fell. And most currencies fell, with only risk-aversion trades working. … Continue reading →

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One year Moratorium on Mortgages

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Ilargi Feb 2, 2009   http://www.theautomaticearth.com/ [As Dmitry Orlov points out in Dmitry Orlov: How Russians survived the collapse of the Soviet Union “In the Soviet Union, nobody owned their place of residence. What this meant is that the economy could … Continue reading →

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Let banks fail, says Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

Haidar, Suhasini. Jan 29, 2017. Trump makes sense to a grocery store owner. thehindu.com Economist-mathematician Nassim Nicholas Taleb is seen as something of an oracle, given that he saw the 2008 economic crash coming, predicted the Brexit vote, and the … Continue reading →

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What derivatives are and why you’re screwed

Posted on April 14, 2014 by

You are the Crisis Feb 2, 2009 by Ilargi at theautomaticearth Oh no, we’re not rid of the bad bank drivel yet, are we? I started out trying to make a point about the character of the paper a bad … Continue reading →

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