Financial News

[StrangeSox]

This is really all the proof you need of the terrible results of liberalism:

 

In 1935, under Hitler’s rule, prayers ceased to be obligatory in schools. In 1962, The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school prayer.

 

Hitler eliminated Christian holidays in the schools first by calling Christmas “Yuletide.” Most American public schools now call Christmas vacation a “winter break.”

 

Hitler took Easter out of schools and instead honored that time of year as the beginning of spring. It has likewise become common for schools in America to refer to time off at Easter as “spring break.”

 

Hitler controlled the church using intimidation and threats. A half-century ago, U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, promoted a bill that included an amendment to use the Internal Revenue Service to remove the non-profit status of a church that speaks against the election of any specific political candidate.

 

Hitler enticed thousands of pastors to promote paganism in their congregations. Neopaganism is one of the fastest growing religions in America, doubling every 18 months according to a June 2008 article in The Denver Post. Many American church-goers practice paganism such as “Christian” yoga, contemplative prayer, and walking a labyrinth. As evidence that church doors continue to open further to aberrant beliefs, a 2008 survey found that 57% of evangelicals do not believe Jesus Christ is the only way to God.

 

Hitler was an environmentalist and vegetarian. Marriages performed by the Nazi state frequently included blessings of “Mother Earth” and “Father Sky.” Today Americans increasingly accept radical environmentalism, pantheism, and the celebration of Earth Day.

Hitler was fascinated by eastern mysticism. Today an increasing number of American pastors encourage their followers to become “mystic warriors”.

 

Hitler believed in reincarnation. He even convinced SS officers that by murdering millions of Jews and other “undesirables” they were allowing them to get on with the reincarnation process and come back more quickly in an advanced status. Americans increasingly accept the idea of reincarnation as well as good and bad karma.

 

Hitler’s holocaust killed between 8 and 11 million Jews and non-Jews. Americans have killed an estimated 50 million babies since abortion was legalized through the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. According to a July 7, 2008 article on worldnetdaily.com “An abortionist who claims to have destroyed more than 20,000 unborn children and who once was Hillary Clinton’s OB-GYN says he is doing ‘God’s work’ when he terminates a pregnancy…He admits that abortion kills a human soul.”

 

Hitler killed 270,000 handicapped people through active euthanasia.[1] America and the courts are rushing toward the same with the murder of individuals such as Terri Schiavo. Oregon voters passed their Death with Dignity Act in 1994 and re-affirmed it in 1997. Washington state voters legalized doctor-assisted suicide on November 4, 2008. In December 2008, a Montana judge ruled terminally ill residents of that state have the right to physician-assisted suicide, and “death with dignity” is gaining acceptance in other states as well.

 

By 1938, all private schools were abolished by Hitler and all education placed under Nazi control. There is constant pressure from federal and many state education authorities to require that Christian schools use state-mandated, humanistic textbooks. The Home School Legal Defense Association is fighting numerous battles at any given time to prevent parents from loosing the right to educate their children as they see fit. In August 2008, a federal district court ruled that the state of California university system may choose not to recognize the diplomas-and thereby deny college entrance to-students who attended a school using textbooks that express a Biblical worldview in the areas of history and science (i.e., Christian schools). Hitler prevented dissenters from using radio to challenge his worldview. Many powerful liberals in America have made clear their intent to reintroduce the “Fairness Doctrine” that would require conservative and religious radio stations to offer equal time to anti-Christian, anti-conservative worldviews.

 

Pastors who spoke against Hitler’s worldview and his murderous regime found themselves on trial and frequently imprisoned for “Abuse of Pulpit.” In America, hate-crime legislation has the potential to criminalize Christians and pastors who speak out against the homosexual agenda.

 

Many Christians in Germany justified their allegiance to Hitler through a belief that “Their duty to God was spiritual; their duty to the state was political.”[2] Many American Christians now have bought the lie that their worldview can be divided between the secular and the sacred-the politician has one area of responsibility, the pastor another, and never shall the two meet. Yet the Bible teaches that all issues are fundamentally spiritual.

 

Hitler outlawed the cross and replaced it with the swastika. Today many churches, Christian colleges, and universities have willingly removed the cross from their buildings. Numerous court cases sponsored by the ACLU have required the removal of the cross from public grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the Ten Commandments cannot be posted on public grounds for religious purposes.

Hitler was fascinated with Friedrich Nietzsche and distributed his writings to his inner circle. Nietzsche promoted Nihilism, the belief that life has no meaning, and he is best known for his position that “God is dead”. Nietzsche is presently one of the most widely read authors by American college students.

 

Hitler exploited the economic collapse of Germany to take over as dictator and usher in his brand of socialism. America’s financial crisis has given liberals in both political parties the opportunity to grow the size of government and implement freedom-robbing socialism at lightning speed.

 

Hitler was obsessed with globalism, and many of America’s most powerful political leaders are willing to subjugate American sovereignty to contemporary globalism.

Many Germans responded to Hitler by retreating into neutrality. Today most Americans prefer to remain neutral on moral issues that they think don’t affect them personally.

On trial after World War II, Hitler’s henchmen used the defense that they had not broken any laws. True, they had not defied the laws of Germany since those had been re-written to fit the goals and objectives of Hitler. The Nazi leaders were nevertheless found guilty because the courts at the time recognized a “law above the law.” Yet now the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the law of nature and nature’s God by claiming that as society evolves, morals evolve, and so the law, too, must evolve.

 

Calling upon Darwinian evolution, Hitler convinced the German people that purging millions of people was acceptable because of the need to create a pure race; also referred to as eugenics. American students across the board have been educated in Darwinian evolution because the Supreme Court has ruled that creation cannot be taught in our schools-even if both creation and evolution are taught side by side.

 

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood in America became acquainted with the doctors and scientists that had worked with Nazi Germany’s eugenics program and had no quarrel with the euthanasia, sterilization, abortion, and infanticide programs of the early Reich.[3] Sanger even published several articles in Birth Control Review that reflected Hilter’s White Supremacist worldview. Planned Parenthood now grosses one billion per year.

 

In Germany, pastors often cited Romans 13:1-2 to encourage Christians to obey the Nazis. Today in America, many pastors have a false view of Romans 13:1-2 and have convinced millions that to disobey governing authorities is to disobey God. This poor training would facilitate Christians here doing just as the German Christians did if faced with similar challenges.

 

Germans accepted socialism to avoid pain. Today’s Americans are rejecting capitalism in exchange for government-sponsored “free” healthcare, education, and countless other government handouts.

 

Many Americans accept what I call, One World Spirituality. This is actually an amalgamation of the three worldviews of evolutionary humanism, Hindu pantheism, and occultism. I noted earlier that Hitler embraced all of these.

 

America is rushing toward government-sponsored, national healthcare. We already have a form of this in Medicare and Medicaid. Hitler, too, expanded and centralized Germany’s healthcare system. As Melchior Palyi explained, “The ill-famed Dr. Ley, boss of the Nazi labor front, did not fail to see that the social insurance system could be used for Nazi politics as a means of popular demagoguery, as a bastion of bureaucratic power, [and] as an instrument of regimentation.”

[mr_genius]

well, this thread isn't about financial news anymore. should we start a new one?

[Balta1701]

Nobel-Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues in the NYT that inequality has become a major issue holding back the recovery.

There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth. While the top 1 percent of income earners took home 93 percent of the growth in incomes in 2010, the households in the middle — who are most likely to spend their incomes rather than save them and who are, in a sense, the true job creators — have lower household incomes, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1996. The growth in the decade before the crisis was unsustainable — it was reliant on the bottom 80 percent consuming about 110 percent of their income.

 

Second, the hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses.

 

Third, the weakness of the middle class is holding back tax receipts, especially because those at the top are so adroit in avoiding taxes and in getting Washington to give them tax breaks. The recent modest agreement to restore Clinton-level marginal income-tax rates for individuals making more than $400,000 and households making more than $450,000 did nothing to change this. Returns from Wall Street speculation are taxed at a far lower rate than other forms of income. Low tax receipts mean that the government cannot make the vital investments in infrastructure, education, research and health that are crucial for restoring long-term economic strength.

 

Fourth, inequality is associated with more frequent and more severe boom-and-bust cycles that make our economy more volatile and vulnerable. Though inequality did not directly cause the crisis, it is no coincidence that the 1920s — the last time inequality of income and wealth in the United States was so high — ended with the Great Crash and the Depression. The International Monetary Fund has noted the systematic relationship between economic instability and economic inequality, but American leaders haven’t absorbed the lesson.

 

Our skyrocketing inequality — so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” — means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. Children in other rich countries like Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have a better chance of doing better than their parents did than American kids have. More than a fifth of our children live in poverty — the second worst of all the advanced economies, putting us behind countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Greece.

[Balta1701]

This is on my list of things to watch, and if I put the link here I'll find it easily. Frontline did a piece last night on why no one from any of the banks/wall street is going to jail despite breaking tons of laws. Apparently there's some very nice hemming and hawwing from an assistant attorney general trying to put his own words together with his current explanations.

[southsider2k5]

don't worry. the GOP will increase the debt ceiling. they don't care about deficits, but they like to put on a show for their constituents. i'm sure a deal is already in the bag, the GOP just needs to wait to go along with it at the last minute so they can say 'look, we took it to the brink and tried our best'. The GOP is just a bunch of wimps who will cave-in on their supposed ideals at the drop of a hat.

 

Mr Genius was right. Left-wing fearmongering wins again.

[StrangeSox]

I'm glad that "left-wing fearmongering" won over destroying the economy just because

[mr_genius]

Left-wing fearmongering wins again.

 

Indeed

[mr_genius]

I'm glad that "left-wing fearmongering" won

 

I'm sure you are

[Balta1701]

This is on my list of things to watch, and if I put the link here I'll find it easily. Frontline did a piece last night on why no one from any of the banks/wall street is going to jail despite breaking tons of laws. Apparently there's some very nice hemming and hawwing from an assistant attorney general trying to put his own words together with his current explanations.

Wow, I was expecting it and I'm still impressed.

 

The episode basically ends with the guy at the top of the chain, Assistant Attorney General Davis, saying that he consulted with experts and decided he couldn't prosecute banks in part because he needed to ensure the stability of the financial system.

 

I figured they'd be smart enough to stick to the "we just couldn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt" defense. He straight up admitted that wall street is too important to prosecute even if they break the law. On camera.

[StrangeSox]

I've waffled back and forth between "we needed to bail them out" and "let the whole rotten system burn to the ground" over the past few years. This might be my tipping point.

[southsider2k5]

And people wonder why I think regulatory spending in this country is a waste of money...

[Balta1701]

And people wonder why I think regulatory spending in this country is a waste of money...

It's like the 1994 assault weapons ban.

 

It was stupidly designed, deliberately designed to be useless, designed to not really do anything.

 

Does that mean that all such regulations are destined to fail, or does that mean the problem is we need to stop designing regulations to fail?

[StrangeSox]

Or is the system itself inherently flawed, unstable and unsustainable?

[southsider2k5]

It's like the 1994 assault weapons ban.

 

It was stupidly designed, deliberately designed to be useless, designed to not really do anything.

 

Does that mean that all such regulations are destined to fail, or does that mean the problem is we need to stop designing regulations to fail?

 

Then again for any regulations to work, you have to have a government that cares. Apparently this administration is bought.

[StrangeSox]

Regulator--->Industry--->Regulator--->Industry

[southsider2k5]

Regulator--->Industry--->Regulator--->Industry

 

Assistant Attorney General Davis=GOVERNMENT

 

[StrangeSox]

this is an inherent flaw in the way our economy is structured. there's rot in the sausage.

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2011/09...lers-wurst.html

 

Unfortunately, modern executive compensation has created a Gresham’s dynamic. The accounting control fraud recipe, as Akerlof & Romer warned, is a “sure thing” – it produces record (albeit fictional) short-term income. This maximizes the CFO’s and the CEO’s bonuses. If a rival (honest) CFO refuses to follow the fraud recipe his bank will report much smaller (albeit real) income. The honest bank may even lose money. (If many control frauds follow the recipe their rapid growth makes it harder for honest banks to make profits because they increase deposit interest rates and depress yields on assets.) CFOs have a realistic, intense concern that they will lose their jobs if they cannot deliver high reported income and maximize their CEOs’ wealth.

 

Hummler does not appear to understand how destructive of theoclassical and neoclassical economics’ defining metaphor it is to argue that Adam Smith’s dependable butcher is now routinely, and deliberately adding meat that he knows is rotten and will make the consumer deathly ill into sausage because he knows that he can deceive the consumer by disguising the filth in an opaque sausage casing. Hummler’s butcher is still acting out of greed, but he has discovered that defrauding and sickening or destroying his customer pays. In Hummler’s dystopian vision, the capitalist is a psychopath, and capitalism has become severely criminogenic.

 

When he presented his keynote address, Hummler’s explanation of why Smith’s butcher had become a psychopath was that the U.S. Federal Reserve had set interest rates too low. He stated, “You have all just experienced at the coffee break what happens when something is given away free – you drink it.” That was a silly metaphor on multiple levels. If we gave a bank a trillion dollars for free it would not be indifferent about losing the trillion dollars. The bank would be the pig farmer under Hummler’s rotten sausage metaphor. The pig farmer produces the rotten meat and, knowing it is rotten, sells it to the butcher. The metaphor fails to explain why the butcher knowingly buys the rotten pork and adds it to his sausage. Under Hummler’s metaphor the butcher is the investment bank creating that purchases subprime loans and creates CDOs. If we gave the butcher a trillion dollars for free to purchase pork it does not follow that the butcher would be losing the trillion dollars. Indeed, the standard neoclassical answer is that providing large, recurrent public subsidies to either the banks or the investment banks would make owning a bank or an investment bank exceptionally valuable to its shareholders. Selling rotten pork or rotten sausages is suicidal for the shareholders’ and creditors’ interests. The shareholders and creditors should exercise greater private market discipline to preserve their valuable franchise. If they can borrow money exceptionally cheaply the banks and investment banks have no need to take excessive risks to earn a positive spread.

 

We need to step back a moment and consider the “low interest rates cause bankers to become psychopaths” argument. If this is true, then capitalism is doomed. We should also recall that, prior to the crisis; the neoclassical claim was that low interest rates were exceptionally desirable because they reduced the hurdle rate for productive investments in the real economy. Indeed, we were promised that we would enjoy booming real economies due to the lower interest rates and central banks all over the world echoed the claim that it was their unprecedented independence, superior understanding of macroeconomics, and anti-inflationary discipline that produced the low interest rates, low inflation, and low unemployment that characterized “the Great Moderation.” Now many of these same central bankers claim that these conditions cause bankers to become psychopaths.

 

The perverse incentives in the first quoted paragraph go beyond banking, of course.

[southsider2k5]

Much love to my law.

[Balta1701]

Much love to my law.

 

That explains why the regulations totally fail.

[StrangeSox]

Economy contracted by 0.1% last quarter, first time since Q2 '09. It was due to cuts in federal spending, mainly defense.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/30/news/econo....html?hpt=hp_t1

Edited January 30, 2013 by StrangeSox

[Jake]

Economy contracted by 0.1% last quarter, first time since Q2 '09. It was due to cuts in federal spending, mainly defense.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/30/news/econo....html?hpt=hp_t1

 

This is why I like the Reagan method, just keep bloating the defense budget until everybody has jobs!

[bmags]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/0...45_percent.html

 

I find Yglesias' series on how amazon is the most terrifying company in the world humorous. I'm sure there were some good signs in amazon's report but it is funny to see Apple's p/e below microsoft and a bunch of companies that seem far less likely to put anything together.

[StrangeSox]

lol, that was pretty good

[Jenksismyhero]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/0...45_percent.html

 

I find Yglesias' series on how amazon is the most terrifying company in the world humorous. I'm sure there were some good signs in amazon's report but it is funny to see Apple's p/e below microsoft and a bunch of companies that seem far less likely to put anything together.

 

I'd imagine investors see long term potential with Amazon as the biggest and best online retailer taking over/spearheading new markets (Kindle, Prime, etc.)

[bmags]

I'd imagine investors see long term potential with Amazon as the biggest and best online retailer taking over/spearheading new markets (Kindle, Prime, etc.)

 

Oh definitely, but I find the labeling of their journey as a suicide mission to destroy all retail hilarious. I'm just surprised we haven't seen any real signs that their lower margin offerings are helping out their higher margin purchases at all. They have an interesting future, that's for sure.