Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Zany numbers!

Greetings good citizen,

What’s up with the damn ‘roller coaster?’ Like you need to ask. What we have observed over the past few days is all the evidence you need to prove that ‘market performance’ has ZERO relationship to the state of the economy, regardless of what the ‘air-head’ pundits say.

So, at the end of the day good citizen you DON’T HAVE a reliable barometer with which to guage the ‘health’ of the society you MUST live in. Worse, the selfish assholes who preach the gospel of ‘the markets know all, tell all’ are seriously demented (besides being well paid) to spew the lies they promote!

How important is this barometer? It’s important enough that the, er, ‘status quo’ forces their paycheck peasants to stay ‘on message’ even while real economic indicators make liars out of them, destroying what little credibility they had.

To paraphrase Bush the Senior, “ If the public knew what we have done, they would lynch us!”

Obviously, Bush the younger didn’t share his father’s sentiments…

Which leaves you with how much confidence in those who decide in our names?

Not that you really have any choice in this, so whatever.

Let us proceed with tonight’s first offering This guy’s a little ‘off the wall’ but he has things in the proper focus…


MathTerror... we're sorry but the numbers you've reached have been logically disconnected

'We are the fools of Europe'
-Bild Magazine

'History is a set of lies agreed upon.'
-Napolean

'And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'
- John 8:32

[Dunno what’s up with all of this ‘famous quote’ stuff but it seems they are all doing it.]

WSJ : The European Union picked 440 billion euros as the size of the rescue fund because the sum of 440 billion euros and 60 billion euros available initially from an EU emergency fund "sounds nice", a European Commission official said with half a smile. Even better, said another, when the IMF's portion is included, the bailout would be rendered by the American press as $1 trillion. [What AM is pointing to here is ‘the source’ of our troubles {the ‘banksters} are (and you’d better believe it) ‘afraid’ to admit to the ‘real’ number it would take to resolve the, er, ‘debt crisis’ so they have settled on a ‘reasonable sounding’ number to make the situation appear, er, ‘less threatening’ than it really is. This, ironically, brings us full circle to the above Bush Senior quote…]

Forbes: In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. “It’s not based on any particular data point,” said a Treasury spokeswoman, “We just wanted to choose a really large number.” [Here we see, er,
‘treason’ being admitted but what does the MSM (never mind the Justice Department) do? You never see it mentioned again (except for the occasional reference in the blogosphere, where our ‘paychecks’ don’t depend on keeping our mouth shut!)]

And that folks is the new Goldilocks world economy in the new normal - wild ass guesses promulgated to save civilization on the basis of 'sounds just right.'

Better to guess up than fess up I suppose.

Snarkiness is running aground on the shores of institutionalized fraudulent conveyance that is becoming so ridiculous that one can only stare in Gaga'd disbelief...

To wit, WSJ: 'April marked the 27th consecutive month in which small businesses either shed more or the same number of jobs that they added, according to a monthly survey to be released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group in Washington, D.C. Since July 2008, employment per firm has fallen steadily each quarter, logging the largest reductions in the survey's 35-year history. Going forward, more small-business owners say they plan to eliminate jobs compared with those that expect to create new jobs over the next three months. The latest study was conducted during the month of April and reflects responses from 2,197 U.S. small-business owners.'

Compare and contrast that with the Bureau of Laborious Statistics Birth Death Model creating 188,000 small business jobs....

Oh but it gets even wackier..

Monday's The King Report : 'For April the fabricators at the BLS have ‘men, 16 years of age and older’ gaining 456,000 jobs. But ‘women, 16 years of age and older’ gained only 94k jobs. This is impossible!!! This is the fourth straight month of impractical imbalance of job gains between the sexes.'

To wit, as mentioned here on March 8th : "the Federales Household Survey showed that this month (Feb.) the category of 'Men 16 years and older' accounted for 297,000 of the 308,000 jobs gain and last month (Jan.) 'Women 20 years and older' produced 529,000 of the 541,000 jobs gain. Dude, stats happen! Don't blame the soothsaya."

Last month the King report revealed, 'Once again we see chicanery in the March Employment because the Household Survey shows a gain of 264k jobs but ‘Men 20 years & over’ accounted for a 290k job gain. ‘Women 20 years & over’ lost 42k jobs. This is absurd!'

What will be the title of the April Household Survey? 'Stats from Mars, B$%#*&@t from Venus?'

Well they didn't choose that appellation although well they should have especially in light of yet another tragedy- per Reuters; 'The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January.'

Sadness layered upon madness served up to a hamster-wheeled populace.

And those of us that cry for reason before farce are left to muse until the dancing stops.

The road ahead seeming to fork between destroy the middle class now (wafting asset values with the gentle lubricant of debasement) or destroy the middle class later (deflation being the midwife of hyperinflation where the path to $5000 gold goes through $500.)

A burnt offering to the tribes and their machinations.

The Black Swan, when it isn't being blamed for its' prescience, synthesized as the hope upon hope of just muddling through.

I fear that we will see things in the near term that we would have never ever imagined could ever happen. [Rules? We don’t need no stinkin’ rules! Which is merely an extension of the old ‘What the fuck are YOU gonna do about it?’ Amazingly, these ‘tough guys’ will scatter (never mind plead ignorance/innocence) when the mob shows up with their torches and ropes…]

Unless of course Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and a requisite choir of angels, descends down to present us with fusion, teleportation, room temperature superconductors or the like to further enable the game...

Someday this war is gonna end.


Left to our imagination is how ‘bad’ it will be once it’s over? Will there be enough pieces left over to start again or will we be prevented from starting over until ‘good’ has wiped out ‘evil’ leaving nothing but dust? (Because the self-interested individual honestly believes it is all their doing and that nobody helped them…so the ‘fruits’ are all theirs, to sell as they wish! How assholes like this gain followers boggles the mind, but there it is!

So we move on to tonight’s second offering for a more ‘practical’ look at the situation…


No Customers Equal No Hiring and Spending

Some experts claim that a slowing rate of decline in certain indicators is a clear sign that the economy is on the mend. Others say that aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus can't help but turn things around. Many argue that the patterns of the past mean the time is more than ripe for a major rebound. Maybe I'm simplistically old school, but I favor the perspective of the NFIB economist quoted in the following Bloomberg article, "Consumer Spending Needs to Rebound Before Hiring: Tom Keene," who apparently believes that the key to recovery is people spending money (italics mine):

Small businesses won’t begin hiring and spending again until consumers regain confidence in the economy, according to William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business.

The NFIB’s optimism index rose to 90.6 from 86.8 in March, the Washington-based group said today. The index remains below levels associated with past economic recoveries, indicating the rebound in growth will take time to develop. The report showed the employment outlook was negative in April for the 17th time in the past 18 months. [So what does ‘increased optimism’ actually mean…it might mean these people are too stupid to see reality!]

Tax cuts alone won’t help small businesses thrive, because small businesses will keep any cash saved on reserve if they don’t foresee sustainably improved conditions ahead for financing and for consumer demand, Dunkelberg said in a Bloomberg Radio interview today with Tom Keene. Instead, the Obama administration should ease taxes on consumers, he said. [Um, how the fuck is that going to work if we are expected to keep bleeding to death to keep the useless/predatory banking system solvent?]

“Get consumer spending back, make them feel better,” Dunkelberg said. “If I don’t think I’m going to get customers, I’m not going to take that money and start a firm.” [Although the BLS birth/death model thinks/assumes you will! How’s that for ‘Hocus Pocus!’]

Proposals calling for a value-added tax, a consumption levy applied to each stage of production, “scare” small business owners because they come with compliance costs and consumers blame the businesses for price increases, Dunkelberg said. A value-added tax on top of current taxes would be “a disaster,” according to Dunkelberg.


Well, it would be a ‘disaster’ IF the whole point of this exercise WASN’T to establish a ‘Banana Republic’ where the stupid peasants learn to cherish the squalor forced upon them…by Ayn Rand’s ‘rugged individual’. (Who is totally dependent on the Army to keep his sorry ass from being assassinated!)

As we enter the third year of ‘trickle down economic collapse’ we need to ask ourselves a couple of ‘fundamental’ questions…has anything changed?

And, (this sort of gives away my answer to the above question) Why hasn’t it?

For a chilling look at the monster our overlords bow to, we have this article from Jesse which tells us that nothing has ‘materially’ changed at all.

Worse, good citizen, I no longer see any choice…there will be war. Those who have claimed lordship over us intend to ‘show us our proper place’ in no uncertain terms.

And while a goodly percentage of the mentally challenged will ‘roll over’ on command, there are a few, like myself, who would rather die on my feet than live on my knees!

Whether or not there are enough of us to make a difference is unknown…woe be unto our children if we don’t prevail!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

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