Your dollars on the move

From you to the pirates.

As well as a huge debt and dangerous interest rates the present U.S. administration still could not introduce liquidity into the economy. So they have allowed, in fact pushed, the dollar to record lows against foreign currencies (today €1.24). This in order to boost manufacturing and exports, basically to preserve jobs. To suck in all the available liquid from foreigners. In turn they have stuck it to their own importers, brutally damaged those whose `profit` comes in dollars, but crucially dampening the effect of the price rise in oil (today it is at $29.40, beyond the $24-$28 benchmark set by OPEC: futures contracts for January are at $31.95).

As well as all these measures designed to prop up an economy that shows no sign of `creating` its own wealth there are also the protectionist measures this administration has created. Firstly steel tariffs. Illegal under any kind of international rules or regulations. The sanctions were created with the full knowledge that it would take many months to sort them out. Thus keeping some of that precious liquid until the WTO could slowly grind to a decision. But by then it was too late, this U.S. administration had already slapped more illegal tariffs on other countries. Notably China.

Then of course there is the war in Iraq. Providing huge subsidies from the U.S. taxpayer straight to elite industries, financial, military and energy related. This knocks though into different 'markets' creating further 'growth'. As we all realise now, this kind of 'growth' is nothing more than book-cooking of the highest order. That money has been taken from ordinary American's savings, or has been leant to ordinary Americans at interest by the banks. A double winner. Then that 'spend' is counted as forming 'growth'. Along the way of course those elite industries are 'skimming', taking a slice. Halliburton are the most extreme, charging the U.S. taxpayer way over the odds for petrol imports for the U.S. Army from the UAE. Halliburton charge $2.64 per gallon, the general going rate is 74c. Now that's what we call wealth creation! Joe Schmo fights and dies, has his legs blown off, his flesh ripped, shoots a few kids, has his Mum pay the bill, gets charged a 400% surcharge for petrol by the skimmers and when he gets home will find that his President has cut army benefits, to save money. But surely an increase in army benefits would be 'economic growth'? It would create extra liquidity? Hey, who cares when you make it up as you go along? Pay and die.

...The thing about loans is that they only work because the person who loans the money makes cash when he takes it back. Or even better when he can grab assets. Now, either the Republican administration will reap the reward it desires after it wins the next election, crushing a further tranche of the American public into the mire. Or, on the outside chance that a Democrat wins, then they will have to return the money the Republicans snorted up their collective schnozzles. A Democrat administration will have to fix the huge deficits, just as Clinton did. Either way ordinary Americans are going to get it in the neck.

Slice by slice, quietly but efficiently, the American public are being herded onto poverty trains and are being sent straight to the ghetto, never to emerge.

...To paraphrase an incarcerated black man, Gil Scott Heron, this recession will not be televised. This recession will happen slowly, they will not jump from the trading floor windows, they will not know who to blame, they will not riot when black men are beaten to death, or shot whilst handcuffed, they will not care that Afghan children are vaporised, because they don't even know enough about their own situation at the bank to save themselves. This recession will go on for years, chip, chip chipping, until there is some kind of political will to embark upon the democratic revolutions the world needs now. That revolution, the democratic revolution, will be televised. But by the time the fear filled Americans switch on their sets and realise they have been duped, the American poor will be so very very angry.   article

Let them eat cake.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.