Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Genious

You've got to hand it to our PM,
Just when Obeid was ready to steal all the top positions, media headlines Australia wide, Julia takes the day, (no mention of Orkopoulis) and puts o'Farrell in a bad light,.. for "as long as it takes".

Monday, November 12, 2012

muck, murk and media management

Yesterday one would've sworn Obeid would headline, but, our political genii Julia,
extraordinary timing,.... 
barry the "not perfect Catholic" deservedly upstaged.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Losers

To exacurbate the extremes of economic cycles is the way to loose funds for investors (buying high selling low). Our financially literate liberal party members and leaders most certainly understand this. To exacurbate the extremes of wider economic cycles is also the way to stress societies (expanding in the boom, contracting in the doom).
Inadvertently, the hard line ideals of our conservative government states is on the verge of committing all these ill conceived ideologies of policy into practise, personal investment knowledge and state policy totally schizophrenic--not aware they are side by side in mutual opposition - right hand not knowing what the left is doing. Emerging from party policy, in the blindness of politspeak, nothing learned from october 1929 and the many years of contraction that followed they are carreering into further contractive policies blighting our emerging future (generation).
Warren Buffet has prospered from counter-cyclical investment, government leaders should also be countercyclic, be trying to bring balance, to stabilise, save in the boom, support amidst doom.---or we will be the losers.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Budgets or Balance

Sure they want to balance the budget, but why be myopic and rigid. The real
job is to oversee a balanced state and a balanced state economy. That
intrinsicly means moderation. Thoughtful, well conceived changes, moderately
engaged that will bring society closer to what seems a healthy balance of all
factors - towards harmony, not jarring dissonance.
Germany has laws to allow reduction in work hours in a downturn/crisis. This
alleviates the turmoil of redundancy payments, corporate collapses, cents in
the dollar insolvencies....They provide relief amidst crisis (which pass)
then recoup after. By nurturing a stable society they can enjoy better
standards of living - reducing turmoil - destruction of value. Balancing
excesses is the secret to stability.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

The issue GFC is based upon the forward selling of credit and profit on such contracts for up to 30 years at rates that now are not realistic. The profits have been booked over the last twelve+ years, (as we see the rich richer) but those booked profits, taken from once future expectations, are now looking more like losses. This leaves a massive cramping of the economic organisation of the World as the profits have been withdrawn-- blood banked by the rich. The Economic dynamic of the World is as the blood loss patient, at the point of organ breakdown, not enough blood supply to the heart to sustain circulation, not enough oxygen to the organs, at the point of catabolic shutdown.
We do need more credit, the authorities have not realised the extreme of the imbalance. Yes, we will need austerity, but we need survival first. We need to avert the damage of shutdown, once stable and recovering, then moderate the drip of credit. Once recovered, then begin the paying back.
The austerity should also be for the rich, but that is a matter for individual governments, and for another time.
R.Steiner in his threefold economy speaks of gift money as being the solution to economic growth, and imaginably it could also be the solution to the euro problems.
In that last weeks flight of capital from Spain et al to safe havens-UK, US, Aus,.. has destabilised bond markets on both sides of the contagion divide I would like to put a case.
Instead of this becoming subvertly a feeding frenzy, where the capitalised west privately buys further into bleeding Spain et al we need something more.
If we, the 99%, in the west could call upon our governments to act towards stabilisation and rebalancing of the economy, and by this to distinctly limit the carnage and plunder, balance could at least be approached consciously-for the common good (as against freemarket capitalism up to now).
The plan would entail more stable countries, where favourably disposed, with balanced QE or by other means, providing buy-up funds for assets or infrastructure in the critical economies. This would strongly support prices and consequently add stability to the troubled banks while also reducing the plunderous aspect of the rapacious global privateers. Such arrangements might be entered into with an exit strategy over the 7 to 14 years expected recovery timeframe, or delivered as an international gift. The latter good will effect would have unsurmised  benefits of gratitude.
There are articles saying "wealth tax"; the problem arises, how can the 0.1% crystalise even 3% of their wealth to pay a wealth tax without shocking asset prices and markets further? 33% would be mayhem. This broken system will and must be fixed gradually and moderately. A more stable approach would be generate credit now, a year in advance of a wealth tax, maybe 1% for 2013, maybe 2% for 2014, and pay back/unmake the generated credit in future in proportion to continued balancing of growth and inflation targets.
The fundamental though is the motive - the intent; where an action is taken with underlying intent of selfishness/greed/getting the better of another, all will tend towards instability.
Where an action is taken with the underlying intention of brotherliness/common humanity/mutual support we will be bringing the stability and moderating influence of trust back into the economy, and trust is what credit is established upon. Gift money imaginably would be very beneficial.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

I have felt significant affinity for W.J.Stein and D.N.Dunlop's work for a good 25 years, most notably their efforts towards moderating and harmonising the excesses of the emerging global economy. With the Eu in the throes of a meltdown again this issue comes enormously to the fore.
We can look at the TARP as a massive supply of funds for American banks to buy up world class assets at severely stressed prices , (ie it is an economic assault, a takeover, a conquest, war but in a different sphere) based upon reckless and excessive lending (from the west), then its opposite (drawing in the noose). The massive banker bonuses post 2008 are but an indicator.
The Brits were far more brotherly about bailouts and the profits went largely to the state (BofE). Currently the EU is like a patient with severe blood loss - haemorhaging, and Mario ex Goldman Sachs cries for Austerity (read stingyness and extension of critical period-all to the profit of the cashed up). Understandably Germany does not want to tie themselves up to life support all across the EU, and it likely would still collapse, as it has been unsustainable. In an emergency ward, with such a crisis, there would be a prompt infusion of saline solution, to bring up the fluid balance to a sustainable level, where the heart and other organs are not destructively overstrained. Blood transfusions would follow and stability would ensue promptly. Such in the EU's case is to provide cash, quickly. What we are not clear of is the means of doing this?? By Stein's reckoning, it has to be moral, and it has to be brotherly. There might be many ways to bring cash into the system morally, one could to increasingly provide loans with minimal charges to all Eu citizens in proportion with the tax they have honestly paid in the last 5 years?? Another way would be to establish a communal EU fund that buys up troubled assets across any and all member states. Once again it could be placed in the control of the best investment directors (again according to taxes paid or honest communal donations given). In five years or ten these loans or funds will be able to pay back to the EU their 2012 grant. It is like joseph the dreamer and the pharoah, but in this case we dont have seven fat years to store up protection from. In its place we have hope and trust, that over the years the extended credit will be recovered and payable. Without such an initiative the gulf states and the US megabanks will plunder much of Europe's wealth and likely destroy much culture along the way.
 Further the farm subsidies are reportedly under question, and they do seem exhorbitant and likely do need moderation, but a major cut will greatly increase food prices and as in the last five years with staples unaffordable to all but the Chicago agricultural futures players consider the instabilities that ensued.The process needs maybe ten years of transition planning, ie very gradual incremental reduction to subsidies. Please forward to all others who may be in any position to influence debate or policy. Please also advise me on your views regarding the crisis and any proposals,..