Category: Scary

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Is the greenback collapsing?

Here’s something that’s relatively easy to miss in these hard economic times where importing things from the US had become a luxury once again — there has been a sharp but sustained drop in the value of the US dollar recently. It’s fairly dramatic, too — in the past 3 months the value of the Canadian dollar has gone from $.77 to$ .92 US. That’s almost a 20% rise in the space of a quarter.

There isn’t really anything currently going on in Canada to warrant this sort of price movement, and indeed much the same story is revealed when looking up the relative values of the Euro and the Pound; even the Japanese yen is appreciating despite the plethora of political and economic bad news coming from Tokyo.

Nope — this is not about other currencies appreciating. This is about the USD tanking, and a low dollar means that Americans will spend more for the imports on which their economy depends. This heralds the onset of inflation in the American market. If Americans think they’ve had it tough since October, they’re in for a rude awakening.

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Words fail me…

Maybe I wasn’t following the news at the time because I really would have remembered this, but earlier in the 2000s it seems that German industrial giant Siemens had plans to use the name “Zyklon” for a range of products that was slated to include gas ovens, which is incredibly tasteless considering the history of the company. Think about that for a moment. Were they going to use the swastika as a logo for this brand?..

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Are we about to witness life as a disaster-porn TV special?

Not that people should panic or anything, but there has recently been a large cluster of seismic activity around Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. And Yellowstone is already known to be a supervolcano which is overdue for an eruption by about 40,000 years.

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The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part III

I’ve been giving some thought as to the actual value of continuing with this series, because a)over the weekends the bailout proposal has changed considerably, and as of the time of my writing this this newer agreement has already been turned down by the House of Representatives. Continue reading “The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part III”

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The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part II

Yesterday I wrote at some length about how the US economy has gotten to the point where Paulson and Bernanke decided it would be worth spending 5 hours promising Congress gloom & doom unless they got a record-busting bailout measure passed. So, why not like this (theoretically) $700B plan to “save the markets”? There are a number of reasons, which I shall put forward here. For reference, here is the draft proposal for the bailout so you can follow along.

Continue reading “The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part II”

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The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part I — How We Got There

In case you’ve been asleep in a cave with your hands over your eyes and cotton in your ears for the past few weeks, the American economy has been in a world of hurt recently. US Treasury Henry Paulson has put forward a far-reaching plan to deal with this crisis. As it turns out there are indeed a lot of things not to like about it, but in order to see what’s wrong with it we need to take a look at how the American economy got itself into this mess in the first place. This will tell us what’s wrong with the economy and whether the bailout plan will address that.

Continue reading “The Paulson Trillion-Dollar Bonanza: What’s Not to Like, Part I — How We Got There”

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It’s not about speculators.

When gas prices reach the levels we’re seeing now it’s easy and convenient to blame unnamed shadowy “speculators” for the proverbial pain at the pump. The fact is, however, that gas is so expensive because the limits of oil production are being reached while demand is ever increasing.

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Tough times for bond insurers.

This is definitely not a good time to be in the bond insurance business. With large-scale insurers Ambac and MBIA — and with smaller players faring no better — one could well think that in the end the lending crisis has brought to light considerable flaws at the very basis of the American — and indeed global — financial sector. (all links above except the first lead to 6-month stock charts).

Continue reading “Tough times for bond insurers.”

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Ah, I long for the days when Canada was a sovereign country.

A few days ago Canada’s diplomats were issued a training manual that listed the USA and Israel as countries which would potentially torture prisoners we handed over to them. I had a sinking feeling that this wouldn’t last, because Stephen Harper is such a pathetic little servile house-boy to his American masters… and I was right of course. The government today has servilely apologized to the countries that torture. The sooner we’ll be rid of those little shits that are in government today, the better off the country will be.

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Deutsche Bank: Merry Christmas renters! You’re now homeless!

Nothing says “Happy Holidays” more than being evicted from your apartment because your landlord got caught up in the subprime lending mess… at least that’s what Deutsche Bank clearly thinks, as they decide it’s absolutely necessary for a partially-blind pensioner to get the f… out of a building they’re trying to sell. Bonus: they “don’t see an upside” in explaining why that is so necessary, so they can’t be bothered.