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

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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Eduardo Porter : Next Crisis from Rising Interest Rates? (New York Times)

A World Unprepared, Again, for Rising Interest Rates. Feb 11, 2014. Eduardo Porter. New York Times. I was living in São Paulo in 1997 when, out of the blue, an investment banker I knew called to ask about Brazilian cocktails. … Continue reading

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Banks get around Bonus Rules = less money to take back after risky bets go bad

February 13, 2014. Banks in London Devise Way Around Europe’s Bonus Rules. Jenny Anderson. New York Times. Since the 2008 crisis, regulators around the world have tried to rein in bonuses, worried that big payouts encourage excessive risk-taking by bankers … Continue reading

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Matt Taibbi : Commodity Scams on Wall Street Will Cause the Next Crash

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks’ Most Devious Scam Yet Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever. Matt Taibbi.  February 12, 2014.  … Continue reading

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Over 10 million people evicted from 4.4 million homes since 2007

The statistics on this vary. Given that the “fix” to the September 2008 crisis was merely kicking the can down the road, with no meaningful reform having taken place, and banks in even worse shape than before by “recovering” by … Continue reading

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