My friend bought an apartment in a really CRAPPY neighborhood in Brooklyn, about 3-4 months ago. There is a guy down her hall that is sell the same exact unit in that building for 40% more than what she paid for hers. Somebody just bought the place down the hall. This real estate bubble is like the 1999 stock tech bubble. It's totally insane. I feel like rates will rip and the Fed won't be able to stop them from ripping. People forget that the Fed does not control interest rates. They control the overnight rate that banks can use when lending to each other. I just feel like the stock market, bond market, and housing market are about to collapse, and I don't think that we will have a flat stock market like the 1970's bear market in the stocks. I feel like we will do a slow grinder to the downside like the Nikkei did. Imagine the US in a 15 year stock bear market? Even if you were bearish and caught the short, life would suck. I'd probably make a ton of money on the short, and then get drafted into the Army to fight some stupid war for oil. Anybody out there share my point of view?
Yes. I would have to agree with most of what you say. Except maybe that the dollar is in the hand of a very few people, and if those people decide to print more of it, then stock prices will rise astronomically. Stocks will still be worth less, but the dollar will be even weaker than stocks, which means you might not make money on a short position. One thing that is worth giving a little more thought is the parallel to Japan you are drawing. The Japanese have been buying the USD and our debt in particular. We have no foreign economy to cling to. Once the USD goes down, the game is pretty much over. One thing worth considering might be the GBP. I don't exactly know, and I suspect only a few hundred people on this planet do know, but rumor has it that the people exploiting the world through this corrupt money system we are talking about, have their roots in England. This might be an explanation for the strength of the pound. But somehow I am not really convinced that the British empire is stronger than ever and has merely gone "stealth". And who cares anyway? The fact is that we live in slavery and we don't know who our masters are, and if we knew, it would not change a thing. The one thing that's really cool though is that we are only about 50% slaves. What we do with the rest of our time and money is up to us! They can force you to pay your bills in paper dollars. They can force you to trade stocks based on paper dollar prices. They can force you to pay income tax based on those prices. But nobody can force you to THINK in paper dollars. If you don't, then this alone can be a pretty good edge.
They can buy US GOV BONDS. Its much rarer though then the overnight stuff, but they can and will do it.
Actually, they don't even control that. All the fed can do is make the monetary base expand or contract by purchasing or selling treasuries. While this activity has an effect on the federal funds rate, it doesn't actually dictate it. When debtors start puking and the federal funds rate starts to rise because the banks are scared to lend to each other, the fed won't be able to do anything about it except offer soothing words. They will literally lose control. The fed really has no control over lending either, which means they have no real control over the total money supply. Reserve requirements for the majority of bank financial instruments were dropped to zero a good while ago. The fractional reserve requirements that the fed controls basically apply only to checking accounts now. Since checking accounts are only a small percentage of the total pool of funding sources for loans, the vast majority of all bank lending is subject to zero reserve requirements. It's entirely psychological. Greenspan is like a jockey riding an elephant. He only appears to be in control because the elephant is docile. And of course, the public wants to believe there is a steady hand on the wheel- the thought of personal responsibility in an uncertain world is just too frightening.
Japanese stocks and Japanese real estate lost more than 60% of their value over the course of the 90's. Americans are way too leveraged to sustain a downturn like that. Our financial system would be fragged long before. More likely scenario is to see a panic stricken government fighting the debt monster with massive stimulus, in which case we'll get to watch the US dollar morph into a latin american currency. p.s. it doesn't matter what the feds can or can't buy because there is no way they can assume the financial liabilities of the debtors or make the creditors whole again. The net creditors in this case being offshore investors, as America's internal credits and obligations cancel each other out. This real estate boom brought to you in part by by Wen Guanxi, a factory worker in Hunan Province.
Hey Lobster do you really think there's a secret cabal of WORMs (white old rich men) behind all this? I only ask because plain old greed and short sightedness seems to fit the bill perfectly. We don't just have these messes foisted upon us, we deliberately create them by electing the politicians who do whatever it takes in order to get votes. Most people can't be bothered to understand basic economics, so the politicians play to that ignorance. If it means disaster, who cares- that's what the people want. The austrian school of economics traces the root cause of boom and bust to simple human folly in the form of misguided government intervention. As a believer I would go a step further and call it sinful human nature. People are looking for a free lunch, governments promise it to them in a million different variations, and this is the end result. If we wanted sound economic policy, we could have it. But people would have to stop wanting something for nothing and develop some common sense first. Unless they've perfected the art of mind control, I don't think we can blame this situation on a secret society.
Where do you see a secret cabal, there are some very OFFICIAL and so "RESPECTABLE" organisations like the powerfull CFR that just directs your politics more than the governement although officially they are just think tank. The origin of CFR is in truth INTERNATIONALIST GROUP they only create regional delegations on each continent: http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/cfr.html The Council on Foreign Relations, housed in the Harold Pratt House on East 68th Street in New York City, was founded in 1921. In 1922, it began publishing a journal called Foreign Affairs. According to Foreign Affairs' web page (http://www.foreignaffairs.org), the CFR was founded when "...several of the American participants in the Paris Peace Conference decided that it was time for more private American Citizens to become familiar with the increasing international responsibilities and obligations of the United States." The first question that comes to mind is, who gave these people the authority to decide the responsibilities and obligations of the United States, if that power was not granted to them by the Constitution. Furthermore, the CFR's web page doesn't publicize the fact that it was originally conceived as part of a much larger network of power. According to the CFR's Handbook of 1936, several leading members of the delegations to the Paris Peace Conference met at the Hotel Majestic in Paris on May 30, 1919, "to discuss setting up an international group which would advise their respective governments on international affairs." The Handbook goes on to say, "At a meeting on June 5, 1919, the planners decided it would be best to have separate organizations cooperating with each other. Consequently, they organized the Council on Foreign Relations, with headquarters in New York, and a sister organization, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London, also known as the Chatham House Study Group, to advise the British Government. A subsidiary organization, the Institute of Pacific Relations, was set up to deal exclusively with Far Eastern Affairs. Other organizations were set up in Paris and Hamburg..." The 3,000 seats of the CFR quickly filled with members of America's elite. Today, CFR members occupy key positions in government, the mass media, financial institutions, multinational corporations, the military, and the national security apparatus. Since its inception, the CFR has served as an intermediary between high finance, big oil, corporate elitists and the U.S. government. The executive branch changes hands between Republican and Democratic administrations, but cabinet seats are always held by CFR members. It has been said by political commentators on the left and on the right that if you want to know what U.S. foreign policy will be next year, you should read Foreign Affairs this year. The CFR's claim that "The Council has no affiliation with the U.S. government" is laughable. The justification for that statement is that funding comes from member dues, subscriptions to its Corporate Program, foundation grants, and so forth. All this really means is that the U.S. government does not exert any control over the CFR via the purse strings. In reality, CFR members are very tightly affiliated with the U.S. government. Since 1940, every U.S. secretary of state (except for Gov. James Byrnes of South Carolina, the sole exception) has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and/or its younger brother, the Trilateral Commission. Also since 1940, every secretary of war and every secretary of defense has been a CFR member. During most of its existence, the Central Intelligence Agency has been headed by CFR members, beginning with CFR founding member Allen Dulles. Virtually every key U.S. national security and foreign policy adviser has been a CFR member for the past seventy years. Almost all White House cabinet positions are occupied by CFR members. President Clinton, himself a member of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group, employs almost one hundred CFR members in his administration. Presidents come and go, but the CFR's power--and agenda--always remains. When it was founded in 1921, the CFR was dominated by J.P. Morgan. Morgan is a Rothschild tentacle. This simply reinforces the obvious, that the CFR is a Rothschild instrument operated by the Rockefellers. The CFR is the immediate progeny of Rhodes' Round Table, which was underwritten by the Rothschilds. David Rockefeller is the chairman emeritus of the CFR. Rockefeller also founded in 1973, and is honorary chairman of, the Trilateral Commission.
Your argument doesn't demonstrate that it prevents such group to exist : the very reason there can be some group be able to take control is the people stupidity and/or unawareness. As Einstein said: âThe world is too dangerous to live in - not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen.â Do you know game theory: in game theory it is a RATIONALITY that such group MUST EXIST because it is their interest to COLLIDE. So it's illogical to deny their existence on the sole basis that you don't want to BELIEVE in them instead of considering FACTS (see CFR above) and RATIONALITY (Game Theory) about their existence. Look at Stock market: don't tell me that you are not aware of all the scandals of collusion latest months ? Is it because people are stupid / greedy / unaware ? Of course if they weren't these group couldn't exist. Oh you would say people can count on Gov and Congress ... like they can count on SEC : the doc below as you acn see is not from a plotist site but direct from gov : they don't even hide , no need of secret : they are totally immune. http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/s71698/marino1.txt Subject: S7-16-97 Date: 8/13/98 6:49 PM You have gotten to being kidding!!!! I have contacted the SEC numerous times and continue as a matter of courtesy to e:mail the agency regarding the recent contacts that I have made. Mr Arthur Levitt Chairman of the SEC has at various times chastised the CPAs for not doing enough to uncover fraud. That is some joke when you consider the role that the SEC has played in covering-up a major stock market manipulation case. Remember, it was the SEC who supported the brokerage industry by allowing them to monitor and dispose of consumer complaints. The SEC went so far under Shad as to state, in their friend of the stockbrokerage industry brief in the McMahon v. Shearson case that went before the US Supreme Court in 1987, that the SEC monitors arbitration cases. In my case the SEC covered-up a stock market manipulation case.. It was Ira Sorkin, former Northeast SEC administrator, who confessed to the press in 1986 that self-regulation never worked. It was he who refused to investigate my case because he considered the fact that Merrill Lynch had performed their own extensive internal investigation. (I have an SEC internal memorandum that supports the statement Sorkin made to Shad). They certainly did. They got rid of their workpapers that supported earnings projections that were 100% off the mark and not corrected until the end of the 11th month of the corporate calendar year. I have made a copy of the e:mail that I have forwarded to various interested news groups and organizations. [see the rest on the site it's too long]
You don't want to believe EVEN WHEN YOU can hear it DIRECT from the mouth from those who belongs to these group like the European billionaire Jimmy Goldmisth who had been in control of General Motors when he said about Mike Milken the Junk Bunds Trader: http://edwardjayepstein.com/archived/milken4.htm (full article here http://edwardjayepstein.com/archived/milken.htm) "I don't know whether or not Mike Milken realized at the time that he had found a way of financing an immense revolution in America, but now he has witnessed the full power of the establishment triangle: big business, big unions and big government." He then added, " As I European, I witnessed the same alliance trying to avoid change and neutralizing those responsible for it." Yes read it again from Sir Jimmy Goldsmith : BIG business, BIG unions and BIG government are COLLIDED TOGETHER.