Another tiny detail from Switzerland

Back in June of last year (2011) I wrote about how there was such a demand for safe deposit boxes in Switzerland that,

 …if you want a bank box in Zurich today, they will require that you have a minum of half a million swiss francs on deposit in the bank, before they will even consider you. That is how short of space they are.

The same person,who told me that contacted me today to tell me that the demand for Safe deposit boxes has grown so hugely that in the area bordering Italy, hotels are now renting out their own safety deposit boxes.

First the Greeks now the Italians. Capital Flight in full effect. But don’t worry I am sure Mr Monti has it all under control.

95 thoughts on “Another tiny detail from Switzerland”

  1. So Switzerland is the mattress of Europe. What are folks stashing there? Surely not currency. Any word on what is going into those deposit boxes?

  2. If the boot would come off my neck just a little I could slip across the Canadian border and maybe get a bank box there. The virtual wall erected by the IRS is nearly insurmountable.

  3. I suppose this should mean the london property market will pick up again, as hot euros flee Italy. Great. Another reason for the hopium addicts to ignore the economic fundamentals.

  4. My husband has to “prove he is alive ” for a small Euro pension he is paid . Today he went to the local council to get the form filled in and stamped on production of his passport. Whilst there during conversation the official commented that they had been inundated with Italians living in UK who have had to prove that they are alive to get their state pension . It then occurred to me that with our ramshackle system where everyone gets a minimum pension are the Europeans claiming a minimum UK state pension in addition and also what are we doing with our ex pat pensioners who are distributed all over the world , has anyone anywhere been asked to prove that they are alive ?
    It does look like the new italian government are serious about curbing expenditure even if they have not been democratically elected even Mussolini made the trains run on time apparently.

    1. Mussolini didn’t make the trains run on time. That was propaganda, which has managed to endure to this day.

      The Italians aren’t serious about making cuts, they are serious about shifting Italy’s wealth to the ‘investors’, and destroying Italy’s social infrastructure designed to make society fair after the fascist dictatorship.

      The ‘investors’ want to get rid of all that and, in reality, are no different to the fascists.

  5. David, just wondering about your views on another small country beginning with S….namely Scotland….with full independence (not that anyone has THAT anymore), would we be the Switzerland of the north, or the Iceland of the south? Interested in your views!

    1. Ken – why use Iceland in a negative way.

      It took the knocks from the folly that has shaken far greater and sophisticated administrations, let their banks fail, then have gone about refining and re-defining their democratic process.

      Compare that to the situation Ireland has dug for it’self as a member of the EU. A country that has oil resources yet gets no direct benefit from the exploitation. And where. to its shame Statoil -the state owned oil company of Norway – is a party to this arrangement.

      Iceland’s position isn’t pleasant, but it is free to adopt policies and maxims it chooses in order to address the issues. Ireland’s politicians copt out of their responsibilities to their nation and its people in favour of the snake oil prescriptions of money for nothing but a vote for the EU.

      As a proponent for Scotland to gain its independence my only serious concern is it continues with membership of the EU. That apart I sincerely believe independence for Scotland could be the catalyst for an improved democratic model being introduced for the rest of the UK.

      1. You need to do a bit of homework on the state of Iceland’s democracy at the moment, and the way the neoliberalist government has sold out to the vultures…

    2. It’s a power grab Ken, and the Scottish People won’t be getting any of it. They will be asset stripped, looted, pillaged, and sucked dry.

      The British Constitutional system, is deliberately designed to DEPRIVE power, and not grant power. We have transferred power, and our rule, to the Law (our Common Law, Constitution, and Bill of Rights).

      Putting this as simply as possible (it would be easy to run it on too long), there are only three forms of Government possible (Democracy, Aristocracy, and Monarchy/Dictatorship). They all have wonderful strengths, and terrible, self-destructive weaknesses.

      The old philosophers all agreed, that the perfect Republic should embody all three. But they didn’t think it was achievable, because there was this insoluble problem, called ‘power sharing’, which would inevitably end up with a catfight and a power grab.

      Then along came John Locke, categorically proving what an outrageous lie ‘Divine Right of Kings’ was and is (inventing the scientific method to do it, in the process – Empiricism), and proving the truth of “If the Law makes the King, then the King is subject to the Law”. So at a stroke, the insoluble problem of power sharing, was fixed.

      None of them have power, but all are protected by The Law (including us).

      This is why The Rule of Law, is literal.

      It is how Scotland and the Scottish People have retained their Rights, their Liberties, their Freedoms, for over 300 years, and had internal peace in the process.

      The same goes for us here in Wales.

      Does anybody really want to go back to the previous system, and its continuous track record of consistent failure and strife?

      Well I for one think far too much of the Scottish members of the family, for them to be condemned to such an awful fate.

      1. Just to add, not only have the Rights, Liberties, and Freedoms of the Scottish People (and us Welsh, for example) been kept safe, but their National identity, pride, and self respect has been kept safe too (as well as the differences in Scottish Law – how long will that be safe in the EU?).

        Again, the same goes for us in Wales.

        All these things are now at terrible risk (and the same goes for the English and Irish etc., too, as well as the rest of the People of Europe).

        This corrupt, criminal EU, is destroying us all, and destroying itself in the process.

        Just because the protective structure has been attacked and damaged (for rather a long time), is no excuse to leave it.

        We need to fix it, because nothing else works, and nothing else can grant us pretty much 300+ years of internal peace.

        eta: Also, the catfight and power grab, was prevented, by restricting each to its own’House’ (the Commons, the Lords, and the Monarchy).

        We now have the power grab in one House (the Commons, where there is no Democracy any more – and there is no Democracy in the corrupt Assemblies either).

        All of it has been done, illegally.

  6. So,people are running with the little money they have to supposedly safe havens and try and stash it as gold.Yet here in the UK,our FSA has stubbornly refused to investigate the banks prior to 2007 and following on from 2007.Perhaps we can look to the Department of Justice in the US,with their vigilant and robust attorneys.Well,suprisingly,it now transpires that the DoJ has been infiltrated and senior justice seekers are now recognised as bribe takers from the very people they are investigating.Mr Eric Holder,the head of the DoJ,has steadily refused to recognise and prosecute the alleged felons in his midst,rather he carries on writing their pay cheques at the tax payers expense.So,scumbags DoJ and FSA await their turns on the guillotine,whilst we are expected to starve and fail because of so many of them in the oversight agencies.(Heads up The Market Ticker and the Daily Caller-might also explain why so may Chinese companies are registered in the BVI)

    1. By the way,just in case you were to think Mr Holder,Attorney General of the US,may have an ethics problem,fear not,in his Fast and Furious gun running to Mexican drug cartels,you know the guys who dumped all the money into Wachovia which was bought by Bank of America,Mr Holder has sturdily helped to kill 300 Mexicans-but of course they are not real people are they Mr Holder?Don’t you just love corruption?

      1. Wachovia was bought by Wells Fargo, not Bank of America.

        And gunwalking to Mexico started under the Bush administration. Corruption is rampant in this country.

  7. ken

    My genuine hope is that Scotland will follow the Northen European / Scandinavian model:

    – High living standards
    – Progressive taxation
    – Equality of income
    – Energy and food self-sufficiency

    Essentially, a genuine social democratic state that fully rejects the Neo-liberal financialisation model, with a return to a respect for the land and energy & environmental resources.

    Unlike the pure Scandinavian model (e.g. Norway), both Switzerland & Iceland tried to hedge their bets by doing both, with differing levels of success.

    1. Alan – they do that then China, India and a few more will take up the shortfall and use the embargo as a negotiating ploy to get Iran’s oil at a discount. Which allows them to produce their goods cheaper etc…… And so the carousel keeps turning.

  8. Not sure how safe te Swiss banks are going to be with them releasing American accounts to the fed. It might be better to bury the stuff somewhere safe.

    1. GCT
      Puts me in mind of the end of the Roman empire in Britain, due to the hoards that were stashed at that time.. A prelude to the Dark Ages, a chilly thought.

  9. Quote of the week from Kyle Bass (courtesy of Zerohedge):

    “as every day goes by, I see deflation in the things you own and inflation in the things you need.”

    That’s right. Your wages are deflating. Your savings are deflating. Your house price is deflating, and your car is getting rusty and falling apart. Capital rusts and rots, my friend.

    Meanwhile, your food bill is increasing. Your heating, energy and fuel costs are rising. Your healthcare, education and welfare (inc pension) provision is slipping away, as the rising cost makes it untenable.

    What you thought you had that was such a good store of value, is slowly getting eaten away.

    What you’ll need to keep up your living standards for the future is getting further out of reach.

    1. Hi Hawkeye. I think:

      Things that have a high value simply because of the availability of cheap debt (mostly high-ticket ‘assets’ e.g. houses) are deflating – there’s less and less of that sort of money, for the same amount of goods, so they must each fall in value.

      Things that are useful, and we use oil to make (small ticket essentials) are inflating, because there’s less fuel to make them, so there’s less goods for the same amount
      of demand, so their prices must rise.

      So yes we do have inflation and deflation at the same time.

      Z.

    2. This is only a tiny part of the problem.
      Unfortunately, there is no way that you can keep up your living standards, and that… no matter how much money you have.
      That’s right.. money can NOT buy everything, contrary to what we seem to believe at this time.
      The stuff that is being “made” at this time, under our heavily automated, industrialized manner of working, does not have the quality that it did in the past.
      It falls apart so much faster… all across the board, too. Even the luxury stuff is shoddily made. The luxury that the infamous 1% are getting at this time still looks remarkably shoddy next to the luxury.. of our ancestors.
      Decadence is a general phenomenon that hits your society all across the board, not just in a few select pockets.
      Your food bill SHOULD increase. Because since we have been producing industrial.. FOOD ROT for so many years, well, we have forgotten how important food is in the rush to buy cheap processed food, and spend our “hard earned” (lol) money on other.. values. Many of us, at least.
      In the U.S., you have had hidden energy subsidies for so many years that you are just now discovering how much energy costs.. WITHOUT THOSE SUBSIDIES.
      And your pension ? Wasn’t that basically saving for a rainy day IN THE FUTURE ?
      WHO could ever possibly guarantee.. YOUR FUTURE ?
      Nobody flesh and blood who I know, at any rate…
      Sounds like you ? we ? have been basically investing in insurance against all risk.
      THAT is one of the most preposterous investments I have ever heard of…
      It really doesn’t make any sense…

  10. Nice work if you can get it (Pt. 523)

    Hobnobbing with the Rich and Famous: this post is unrelated to the thread but got me going: http://goo.gl/hSI8Y

    Yesterday, Huhne voted with his LibDem colleagues to remove benefit from severely disabled children and cancer sufferers, set a 12 month time-limit on benefits claimed by those suffering long-term illness/disability, scrap the Disability Living Allowance which is many severely disabled people’s lifeline, and consign many currently able to live at home to a lifetime of institutional care (the benefits were introduced because, quite apart from the disability rights issue, the cost of institutional care far outstrips payments made to allow people to live at home), and subject the severely mentally and physically disabled who do receive any benefits to regular ‘reviews’ undertaken by private firms paid incentives to remove people from benefit.

    And we’re paying for his hobnobs!

  11. ”It has now been more than thirty years since the supply-side revolution conquered Washington, since laissez-faire became the dogma of the nation’s ruling class, shared by large numbers of Democrats as well as Republicans. We have lived through decades of deregulation, deunionization, privatization and free-trade agreements; the neoliberal ideal has been projected into every corner of the nation’s life. Universities try to put themselves on a market-based footing these days; so do hospitals, electric utilities, churches, and museums; so does the Post Office, the CIA and the U.S. Army.

    And now, after all this has been going on for decades, we have a people’s uprising demanding that we bow down before the altar of the free market. And this only a short while after the high priests of that very cosmology led the world into the greatest economic catastrophe in memory. ‘Amazing’ is right. ‘Unlikely’ would also be right. ‘Preposterous’ would be even righter.”
    Thomas Frank, Pity the Billionaire

    1. Charles,

      I have just bought a book called “The strange non-death of neoliberalism” by Colin Crouch.

      (It’s in a queue at the moment, so I will share any nuggets in due course).

      But certainly I share the author’s bafflement as to why we are still in Neoliberalism’s grip.

      1. Because they’re winning the dis-infomation war. Come on, it ain’t rocket science.

        You’ve got papers like the Guardian ( still in business only because of a Caribean tax loophole) and the Indie, ( saved from closure by a cuddly Russian oligarch), who spent a decade criticising the Labour Party for not being too unimaginative and not left wing enough, supporting the Libdem part of the coalition. It’s all the fault of Gordon Brown and the disabled.

        If media outlets like them have taken up the TINA line, then theres not much hope for the rest of the MSM. The agenda is set by the 1% and their paid shills. The whole world over. That might make me sound like a grumpy old commie, but i’m not, i’m a centre-left social democrat. I’m just f*cking astonished what the bastards have got away with.

        Thats why blogs like these so valuable, and there are in truth very few of them. They’re not dependant on the pre-existing coprporate structures for their well being, so they don’t have to compromise, they dont have to let in 40% bullshit so they can give their readers 60% sense.

        1. “Because they’re winning the dis-infomation war. Come on, it ain’t rocket science.”

          That’s true, but it was also true in the 1930s: economic liberals had a stranglehold on policy, with Andrew Mellon recommending the liquidation of labour, stocks, farmers and real estate, and the right-wing press – led by William Randolph Hearst’s railing Roosevelt’s administration being ‘more communistic than the communists’. Even FDR came to power castigating Hoover for running a deficit and promising to balance the budget in line with the orthodoxy of those (and now our) times – and yet, events temporarily forced him to change tack against his natural instincts, and not least under pressure to forestall a left-wing reaction before he backtracked in ’37 – bringing on another recession that was only repaired through the ‘military Keynesianism’ necessitated by WWII.

          The question Frank, and presumably Crouch, ask is why that reaction has been forestalled this time round? After an initial call to break up the banks and effect ‘Big Government’ reforms, the right have regained the initiative, convincing the public that government is the problem, not the solution, and that the deregulated, untaxed market and the privatisation of the public sphere and the end of welfare is the answer – despite one of the biggest market failures in history.

        2. As an almost old commie I object to the adjective ‘bitter’.

          I’m not bitter, I am hopeful for humanity.

          And welcome to a real understanding of class relationships after all those years!

          1. Damn right Mike.

            All the pomp and theatre of modern politics have been cleared away, and whats left is the old struggle between the very rich, and their mouthpieces, and everyone else.

            If you’d told me that 3 years ago i wouldn’t have believed you.( In fact you probably did on CIF, and i sneered at your naivety.)

  12. Agree with John Souter that Icelands model is preferable to Irelands
    and I share Hawkeyes aspirations

    BUT the “Scottish” banks are massively reliant on UK government for their debts
    AND Salmond is imagining keeping the British Pound as our currency, before we can join the Euro FFS!

    I can’t see how these things can make us either independent or successful

    1. Ken -The massive debt you refer to is a scaremongering ploy used by Westminster.

      Scotland would have to take its share – which could be 8.5% of the UKs deficit presently at £1trillion which -assuming my sums are correct – around £85 billion.

      However, around 60% of the UK’s deficit is down to financial liabilities i.e. The City of London’s financial sector which, by definition, covers a large proportion of RBS and BoS indebtedness and when you ally that with the statement from Westminster of their intention to make a profit from their shareholding in the banks – if that is believable – I doubt very much whether half of that alleged £85billion liability will ever be transferred to Scotland’s fiscal purse.

      As for staying within the sterling yoke. I’ve already made clear my concerns regarding the EU so, for me, better to stay with the pound in your pocket than the euro in the bush. Apart from that, the mechanics of independence will manifest all sorts of problems in the calculation and transference of asset and liabilities. While these are ongoing it makes sense to me for currency variations to be kept out of the arena.

      But once these negotiations are completed, Scotland will have to decide from all the available options and a major factor in that decision could be whether or not the rump UK is still dancing to the tune of the financial oligarchs.

      I for one, both as a believer in the democratic process and the right of humanity to enjoy the time they have on this earth, sincerely hope both the tune and band has changed.

      That said, if you’re a believer in statistics – which I try not to be – on a per capita basis against income sourced within a nation the latest figures show Scotland as 7th in the world league tables. The UK as a whole is 17.

      But that’s a ‘bugger thy neighbour argument” not mine which relies more on the catalyst persuasion.

  13. http://bloom.bg/ywQDN8

    “The ECB has purchased 219 billion euros of debt-strapped nations’ bonds since 2010”.

    I’m beginning to wonder if it is not the ECB that is the main barrier to bond holders accepting losses on sovereign debt.

    How can any central bank expect to avoid taking losses on the purchase of “219 billion euros of debt-strapped nations’ bonds”? Is that not like purchasing the IOUs of a bankrupt person?

    It appears to me that it is not the markets but the ECB that is resisting losses.

  14. The Dork of Cork

    Looking at IEA energy stats (using their methodology) recently and found out the only western European country which increased its total primary energy supply TPES during the years 2007 to 2009 was Switzerland at +1.2MTOE
    Even Norway experienced a decline in energy consumption during 2009 as the price of Oil declined I guess.

    The PIigs took one third of the total “adjustment” for the entire OECD Europe

    Spain : Y2007: 143.87 / Y2008 :138.79 / Y2009 : 128.19 …. decrease :15.68 MTOE
    Italy : Y2007: 179.09 / Y2008 :176.03 / Y2009 : 162.71… decrease :16.38 MTOE
    Ireland: Y2007 : 15 / Y2008 : 14.98 / Y2009 : 14.01…
    Decrease : 0.99 MTOE
    Greece :Y2007 :30.22 / Y2008 : 30.42 / Y2009 : 29.05
    Decrease :1.17 MTOE
    Portugal :Y2007 : 25.07 / Y2008 :24.16 / Y2009 : 23.85……. Decrease :1.22MTOE

    Total MTOE lost from 2007 to 2009 :35.44 MTOE
    Thats 2 X 2007 Ireland’s worth of activity gone somewhere else + a extra 5.44 MTOEs for good measure.
    The 2010 Data is probally still very negative but the IEA charges for the 2010 figures.

    My Guess is that it will show a stabilization of energy figures in “core” Europe during 2010 while the PIigs will show a continual decline.
    Looking at the IEA energy balance figures for OECD Europe from 2007 to 2009……..

    TOTAL TPES in 2007 : 1826 .57 MTOE
    in 2008 : 1821.5 MTOE
    in 2009 : 1720.9 MTOE
    Decrease of 105.67 MTOE

    Using official Irish energy balance figures from 2007 to the more recent 2010 Ireland suffered a decline of approx 1MTOE in its Transport sector alone (although it uses different methodology)
    2011 Ireland total energy consumption should show much greater falls as it had a mild Winter on top of a severe Depression.

      1. The Dork of Cork

        Yeah , he slightly too Austrian for my taste.
        He thinks much of the worlds wealth comes from Human work , when that has not happened since the days of slavery.
        The Banks make money from wage arbitrage alright which is a variation & modification of the Atlantic Slave trade but the locomotion / energy comes from oil as opposed to the physical act of picking cotton.

        However the world does not build any capital when it is on a petrodollar system.
        The money just gets recycled into soccer players , whores & fast cars.

        Its a pure depletion game – the hinterland around cities are not wealth generators anymore , they are the consumers of depleting wealth.
        Before Industrialization cities trading with other cities – based entirely around their local hinterland – although financial centres such as the Italian republics , Amsterdam , London were already extremely dominant back them.

        1. At least the Medici were mindful of the plebs & left an amazing artistic legacy, unlike the present shower.

          I’m glad you told me he is too Austrian, I will keep that in mind. I look at it mainly for the stats & graphics.

          1. The Dork of Cork

            He is a much more intelligent then Dorks but sometimes that means you miss the simple things.
            Now when I say wealth I mean core wealth or the energy base – but theres no point in making millions of tons of pig iron just for the sake of it – that would not increase end use wealth or happiness for most people.

            Anyway the IEA figures are fascinating – the OECD figures illustrate a dramatic reduction of energy use – that stuff is either going to China or just simply not coming out of power stations / oil wells ,mines etc.
            If they direct more resourses towards capital intensive energy production this will subtract from even more from demand.

            I don’t think this level of globalization can work at these energy densities – so the wage arbitration model is coming unglued.
            Industries will have to come Home.

            Theres a good possibility they will be making Ships on the Clyde withen a decade me thinks.

            But the bankers are resisting this as wage arbitration is where they make their really big profits.
            Their serveants such as the Pascal Lameys of this world will have to work harder to keep their web of debt from shrinking.
            They will probally increase the amount of suffering to acheive this sad goal.

    1. Rich – you are right not to trust the employment figures.

      No doubt in the US unemployment relief is time related – so, in effect people who stop getting benefit after 12 months will drop off the statistical shelf.

      Of late similar tactics have been adopted by the UK commissars, where within a year the Unemployment statistics will be massaged by a new title along the lines of -Unemployed Benefit Costs.

      As in all things valued by the present mantra it removes the crises from effect on the individual to that on the altar of cost.

      As to your post on the energy usage – operate within a cartel and when demand drops, as it undoubtedly will in a recession, increasing prices is a calculable solution to maintain profit in the short-term and become a substantive base for higher profits once demand increases.

      This link may interest you -www joannanova.com ” Movimento dei Forconi”

        1. Looks like a ‘Tea Party’ variant to me, ‘big gubmint’ & all that? I see Jo is a climate change denier too.

          A ‘Science Communicator’….hmmm, follow the money, looks like Jo is. Follows the usual ‘style’ for this cr@p imho.

          1. I know where you’re coming from Mike. Being of a scientific mind-set myself I tend to follow the data trail and empathise with the majority scientific opinion. I don’t this blog is denying climate change, but it is disputing the severity.

            In my mind, climate change is definitely occurring – photographs of all that melting ice are a “no brainer”. However, one might still dispute the cause. The Hockey Stick Model provides a powerful argument in favour of human-induced climate change, but this world has gone through cycles of hot and cold, without the existence of man, many times in the past.

            We should endeavour to scale back our CO2 footprints because common sense dictates that the world has limited resources, but we should also be aware that this world retains natural cycles that have the potential to make our interventions rather diminutive.

  15. @Richgb
    Yeah the decline of transport energy use in Ireland between 2007 & 2010 is approx the same as the total private car consumption in Ireland in 1990…………………

    Its quite big but this encompasses international aviation which is hard to measure & less fuel tourism from Northern Ireland.
    Never the less the road freight sector has totally collapsed.
    The figures are truely astonishing.

    I think we have witnessed the collapse of even the post industrial western society which has relied on global wage arbitrage to make a false profit.
    Very little has been added to the world for 30 to 40 years in my opinion.

    If you look at Nuclear energy in Europe it peaked in 2004 – this was the year EDF became a limited liability corporation.
    EDF have not completed one plant since then – they were making 10 to 20 a decade at one stage.

    People just don’t understand that making profits from natural utilities is by its very nature extractive.
    The reason why private utilties will not build Nuclear is that they create a energy glut on the market when built.
    Private utilties cannot make any profit from gluts , only scarcity.
    Natural gas which is a much lower upfront capital cost operation suits them perfectly.

    1. The Dork – I have to admit to never having thought of the energy companies not building generators so as to intentionally not create an energy glut.

      However I doubt if that has ever been a major factor in their deliberations. To my mind their fundamental reasoning is to use existing plants beyond their sustainable life, then use the energy supply ‘crises’ to extract the maximum grants from the public purse towards new facilities.

      It’s the classic function of privatisation – socialise the costs while privatising the profits.

      1. The Dork of Cork

        The dynamics of Nuclear are quite simple and are the opposite of NG.
        Nuclear needs money & not credit to build the thing.
        When you spend MONEY on these high capital cost endeavours you subtract credit for things such as consumer durables – think cars, electrical appliances ,houses etc.
        So as the building occurs demand for energy is weak……… then when built 1000MW comes onto a market that is not “mature” as they say.
        This one two creates a classic glut of electricity on the market – the bankers must now create new credit so as to absorb the new supply via new credit demand.

        This cycle would bankrupt a private company – it can only operate a older Nuke plant in a mature market & run this high value capital asset down to express a profit on its books.

        So one mechanism externalises the wealth via increased demand of consumers and the other internalises wealth via increased profits.

        NG dynamics are very different because of the initial low capital cost of Gas turbines (jet engines really).
        The utility company invests a smaller amount of capital into the project – this does not subtract to much resourses therefore consumers can continue to buy consumer goods with abandon – you get no loss of demand.
        So the gas power generator comes on line into a rising market for electricity , it starts repaying the smaller capital cost much more quickly , gas begins to deplete , it rises the cost of its product further making more profits – eventually the economy collapses.
        The energy company becomes Bankrupt – the company is bailed out by the goverment / people.
        This creates less demand & therefore more contraction and so on.

        The dynamics are almost identical to banking utilties reaching out into future wealth via credit growth.
        The economic collapse is indeed closely related to the “dash for gas” in the 80s & beyond.
        Wasting such a valuable product in electricity production is a crime as so much of this high value fuel is wasted in Trransformation losses.
        The oppurtunity cost of the dash for cash is enormous as the fuel should be used for direct combustion.

    2. The “lack of investment” is a crucial point. Investment requires long-term thinking and the patience to risk a few setbacks along the way. In these days of token knighthoods and golden parachutes where’s the incentive? When it comes to making stuff, wars appear to be our greatest source of inspiration and the “great industrialists” have been subjugated by a democratic workforce.

      The financial crisis will end eventually, and workers will drift back to the real sources of wealth, such as industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, this will be made more difficult by the asset stripping that has occurred to sustain the pension funds of the people who originally built those sectors.

      Rampant consumerism and the “better lifestyle” gobbles up all the easily available resources, producing poisonous by-products along the way. The consequences are inevitable: a good strong ale that will last a few days, but a steep decline in workers.

      Only a few can be rich and, to paraphrase 24K, the rest should be comfortable enough around the fireplace with a few friends.

  16. “I am concerned that MF Global demonstrates that the too-big-to-bail banks have found a new and almost riskless way to make outsize profits. Because derivatives, repo and liquidity are so very highly concentrated now, and leverage is at pre-crisis levels again, these few players can rig the markets and liquidity to choose when and how their clients fail. Their top down view of clients’ trading and custody portfolios and cash positions and flows puts them in a position to exercise tyranny. They can game their clients, taking advantage of superior information, credit and liquidity to ramp or crash targeted markets as needed to precipitate a crisis. They can demand the choicest assets as collateral, setting very high over-collateralisation thresholds, and then exercise during post-failure turmoil to retain everything they hold at rock-bottom prices.

    In today’s low volume markets, a crash or squeeze is even cheaper and less risky than ever before. Instead of working for their clients’ success, an unscrupulous clearing bank – or several operating in collusion – can profit on engineering market instability or turmoil.

    If one were a conspiracy theorist, one might suspect that such games were being played now in global markets. Perhaps gold is being used as collateral for margin and cash liquidity, sold by counterparties to bring the price lower, leading to margin calls for even more. A crisis arising from a major default (Greece, Portugal, a huge bank) would force the price lower still, when the collateral would be exercised on default. Following on, the price might rocket again to enable the conspirators to seize outsize profits. Just a scenario, mind you! (Although, I note that Lehman’s counterparties reported record profits through much of 2009.)

    What is left of the global markets becomes a game of engineered survivor bias. Only those operating outside the law and with unlimited regulatory forbearance can win while the rest of us lose. As I noted in 2008, after Lehman failed, in Financial Eugenics, “It’s not your survival they’re engineering.”

    I don’t say absolutely that what I describe is actually happening. But it may be. Certainly market conditions are ripe for it, and MF Global reinforces the pattern.”
    London Banker: http://goo.gl/LRAcO

      1. Another way of looking at this is by reference to the amount of oil (petro-dollars?) left in the world. According to BP, in 2010 there were 1333 billion barrels of oil remaining to pump – see here: http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2010.pdf.

        At today’s prices this equates to $152 trillion. Hmm! Bit of a shortfall there.

        How about gold? Well, there are 140 million kilogrammes in the world according to this source: http://www.whatprice.co.uk/financial/how-much-gold.html

        At today’s prices this is $8.2 trillion. Very little succour there!

        I think we might need another planet as security for all those derivatives. Or perhaps I’ve miscounted all those zeroes at this late hour of the day?

  17. “But the central lesson of the last 30 years is that a widening income gap and a more productive economy do not go hand in hand. An economic model that allows the richest members of society to accumulate a larger and larger share of the cake will eventually self-destruct. It is a lesson that is yet to be learned.”

    AGAIN!

    http://goo.gl/tZoDC

    http://goo.gl/kMJn

  18. We can scramble our brains with plagues of statistics and kaleidoscopic facts and lies that numb the brain as to where and what we are, and what we would want to be, and how we would get there.

    We are not instigators of these plagues or the facts and lies. Most times we are not even interpreters since base lines for statistics vary and facts prove to be lies while lies are used to distort facts until the smoke and mirrors of obfuscation and distortion leave us with only one certainty of where we would want to be. And even in that we’re unsure because where we think we want to be may not be the best place we could be; and anyway we doubt our ability to pick the right route to get there.

    However one irrefutable fact is emerging-it has different shades and rates of emergence depending on your involvement, level and position – within the present system we have been sold a pup.

    Our monetary systems are so corrupt they have destroyed all sense of value and by illusions have added delusions. It may, in the short term, be contained, but not if we keep the same administration handling it. They have got to go.

    In politics our politicians have corrupted democracy until it’s a duplicitous and covert form of tyranny – our welfare doesn’t matter, their nation doesn’t matter, only the bottom line of their casino chip masters and the stakes they can earn from their compliance matters -they have been corrupted by bribery. They have got to go.

    We want our democracy, our nations, our life, liberty, and world back – all we have to do is take it.

    We really have no choice. The ‘they’s’ really are creating a new world order and as the ‘we’s’ we have no significant role to play in it.

    1. “We want our democracy, our nations, our life, liberty, and world back – all we have to do is take it.”

      John,
      How do we do it and what’s the strategy? How can I help?

        1. John,
          Melbourne Australia. Yeah, not good geographically. I’m willing to open up a website or 10 to host information or contribute a modest donation to a suitable cause or even offer myself as a research assistant.

          1. Troy -sorry for the late reply, been busy of late.

            Have you any ‘occupy’ down there or has the pinch not settled yet?

            Might be worthwhile getting some figures on immigration from Iceland, Ireland, Greece etc and getting that on the blogosphere questioning why?

    2. John,

      I don’t think it’s the ‘monetary systems’ per se that ‘need to go’. Rather, it’s what corrupt & ignorant politics permits the key actors of the financial sector to do.

      MMT shows that the present fiat monetary system could be readily used to enormous benefit for the majority of citizens. Their position as regards the financial sector is summarised as banning outright approx 90% of what they currently do (the casino). I agree with this. With the help Steve Keen’s new dynamic economy models, which include the effects of debt/credit (principles entirely consistent with MMT), the correct information can be generated to police banking. Something which current economic models studiously ignore (we know why), & we’ve seen what happens.

      I’ve posted this link before, but I think it’s an excellent summary of what banking used to be & what it needs to be reverted to.

      http://www.greenhousethinktank.org/files/greenhouse/home/Banking_inside_final_3.pdf

      I do agree with you as regards the political/democratic systems, & I would include news & factual media too. Neither are ‘fit for purpose’ Unless that ‘purpose’ is defined as rule for the sole interests of top few percent to the exclusion of anyone else.

      1. Mike Hall – I agree getting banking back to what it should be, but not to what we thought it was, would be a step in the right direction.

        From what I’ve read and understood of MMT it has the potential to improve the system. What it doesn’t address in my opinion is the ability of the financial shamans to take the inch of opportunity and turn it into a mile of exploitation. In much the same way -but with a new lexicon, method and formula – as the present system has evolved into the toxic swamp its now languishing in.

        In essence the only real purpose money or, if you like, figures have is to balance the books between real markets, trades and services; all these mythical trillions in derivatives and cds gobbledegook could disappear back to the land of myths tomorrow without any real effect other than destroying the distortions they’ve created.

        As you state the MSM is an ancillary department responsible for the propagation of these myths, just as the politicians have been bought and sold to act as their human resource controllers. But for me, out of them all, it’s the politicians that are damned beyond redemption. Their position, as highlighted by this crises and its subsequent exposures, have shown their noses have been so far up the anal cavity of the financial block their brain and conscience have been clogged with its toxic excretions.

        You can’t fight that nor wean them off it and there’s certainly no oxygen in the merde that gives me any confidence to immerse myself in it in order to try and modify it.

        But the issue that really causes me concern is the fear of what should and could we do developing into a catechism of apathy where we do nothing. I’d rather the nations put up the – closed for business sign due to stocktaking – for however long it takes to sort out rather than for this state of affairs to continue.

        The way the financial shamans are heading allied to the fact they’ve already closed off half the businesses, may make the ‘closed’ signs not so radical as they may appear to be now. We may even have cause to be proud of the new products we’ve re-stocked with.

    3. This morning I read Balzac’s introduction to “La Comédie Humaine”, a many volume take on human society that dates from the 19th century.
      Like many others of his time (and there are a few of us still around…), Balzac was very very… circumspect about the nature of representative democracy.
      Balzac had no deep enduring love of “the people”, who, he noted (rightly in my opinion), could, on occasion, rapidly metamorphose into… a LYNCHING MOB.
      (Really, when you think about it, “the people” is an abstraction, to be found in constitutions, and on paper. When you SEE… “the people”, it is in the form of mobs, or crowds.)
      Corruption has always existed, under every political system, and it will always be with us. We should really not be.. TOO NAIVE in our haste to eradicate it.
      At this time, I find it very unfortunate that… “we” spend so much time looking for THEM to blame, and do not avail ourselves of our remaining liberty, to make painful examinations of conscience to see how WE might be contributing to the loss of our freedom. (How am i contributing to the loss of my freedom ? That might be a good place to start, no ?)
      It takes two to tango they say. To me.. THAT IS A FACT.
      Really, there are way fewer corrupt people running around than you think.
      That’s what makes our situation REALLY SCARY. So scary that we are jumping up and down LOOKING FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO BLAME.
      Geez… the U.S. general solution of locking… THEM up and throwing away the key will not work here…
      Back to the drawing board, she says.

      1. Debra – human society has a lot of faults, that is an undeniable fact – however it is not a viable excuse for one of these flaws – the one of indifference and apathy – to be given primacy over the battle to develop a more humane society.

        Further, there’s world of difference between the apathetic approach associated with blame and the constructive exposure of systems that are fundamentally wrong and have been applied in a corrupt fashion.

        There are times and issues where the pejorative ‘Mob’ is the term applied by the 1% when the other 99% are telling them enough is enough.

  19. On the role of the economics profession (including a testimonial to the aforementioned Steve Keen):

    “If you have never heard of him, that’s not surprising. You probably don’t read too many academic journals. The real problem is, most economists have never heard of him either. If we are to truly recover and put ourselves back on the track to prosperity, that has to change. It is vital that our profession revise its incentive structure such that models that more closely reflect the complex institutional structures and behaviors in the real world are valued above those that look pretty, but tell us nothing.”
    http://goo.gl/pGwwO

    1. Eugene Fama and the “rational market” theory is my least favourite.
      Those Chicago school wankers deserve a bit of public humiliation.

  20. Charles & Stevie,

    Beat me too it! Excellent to see heterodox economics getting some exposure, not before time 🙂 (MMT is also mentioned)

    Keen also got a a guest piece in a newsletter circulated at Davos – quite a prestigeous gig, considering all the Nobel chancers they could have picked.

    Historically, I think Keen will be seen in the same terms as ‘Galileo’ in the years to come, if humanity lasts long enough.

    1. This exercise seems to confirm Amato and Fantacci’s contention that the most effective form of censorship is to ‘drown dissent in a sea of opinions’!

      http://goo.gl/hRTjt (of course, Andrew Lo’s own trawl through the waves is not without its own agenda)

      [incidentally, James Kwak offers something of a rebuttal of one of Lo’s specific criticisms here: http://goo.gl/4JEA2 ]

  21. For anyone who missed the earlier post – this is a (smoother, unexpurgated) version of Byron Dorgan’s speech to Congress of 4th Nov 1999 on ‘Too Big To Fail’ during passage of the Gramm-Leach-Biley legislation: http://vimeo.com/35707564

    1. Thanks Charles for putting that Dorgan link up again. It should be required listening for anybody who wants to understand the current mortgage crisis.

      Like Dorgan I remember the Savings & Loans “taking off like roman candles” in the ‘80s. I was in the mortgage business in California. The result was inevitable.

      I also remember when Congress repealed Glass Steagall in ’99. I fully understood why they were doing it. I saw it every day in my office.

      My Century 21 agents and loan officers were being recruited away from me by Countrywide and Prudential who were making loans to people who were unqualified by any standard. My agents followed the easy money.

      I and thousands of other small franchised offices were forced out of business by unscrupulous lending. The too big to fail scam was on.

      1. Pat / Charles

        Perhaps Dorgan was one of the few people who truly understood the systemic flaws of the S&L crisis and its potential ramifications for the future.

        Two academics writing in 1993 (Akerlof & Romer) fully understood this too and wrote a paper titled “Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit”:

        http://www.signallake.com/innovation/Looting1993.pdf

        It is not quite as long a read as it first appears but is stunningly prescient in relation to the current crisis (esp. Lehmans, AIG, Countrywide, and MF Global):

        “Nevertheless, many economists still seem not to understand that a combination of circumstances in the 1980s made it very easy to loot a financial institution with little risk of prosecution…..This paper has shown how other people’s money, typically deposits in financial institutions or insurance funds, can profitably be looted, with the guarantor of the assets, typically the government and its taxpayers, left holding the bag.”

        Perhaps the economists and policy makers did understand it very well! They just chose instead to treat the Akerlof & Romer paper not as a warning for improved regulations, but more as a “how to loot” manual for the 21st Century!

        1. I still get occasional moments of disbelief at the sheer criminality of these guys. It soon passes though, they make Capone, Luciano & Lanksy look like pickpockets. It’s ironic that the mafia supposedly wanted to go legitimate, there doesn’t seem to be anything legitimate, just bigger rackets.

        2. It all comes down to regulation. Greenspan pretended to believe that you could play a football game without a referee. He knew better.

        3. Robert Sherrill’s piece on S&Ls (from 1990) sums up ‘The Looting Decade’ – and the incredulity that it would be repeated on a global scale. I know I’ve posted this a couple of times before, but it does nail the BIG LIE that nobody could have foreseen the effects of deregulation which underpinned the faith that markets could police themselves:

          Nevertheless, though it is obvious that the tottering commercial banking world needs tighter regulations than ever, the industry and the Administration push on pell-mell for deregulation. In fact, the dismal condition of the industry is being used by the deregulating claque as their strongest, and weirdest, argument. Just as St. Germain, Garn, Pratt and Wall argued that the best way to help zombie thrifts recover was to remove all regulations so that they could “grow out” of their problems, now Bush, Fed chair Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, Seidman and others demand that the government dismantle what Seidman calls the “archaic laws” that for many years have controlled commercial banking. They, too, want to “grow out” of their perilous condition. What these laws do is protect the banking industry from its worst instincts by insisting that banks remain banks, and not become gamblers, hucksters and hustlers in other lines as well.

          The deregulators will probably make their big power-play next spring, when, under mandate from Congress, the Treasury Department must come up with its “reform” plans for the banks. You can expect the other side to try to sell some blind horses to us, like offering to swap a lower ceiling on deposit insurance for wholesale abandonment of regulations–as if the rotters wouldn’t be just as happy engaging in risky activity under a lower ceiling as they have been gambling under the present one. If there is a double agent to be on guard against, it will be Donald Riegle, chair of the Senate Banking Committee. He and the moneylenders are–could any old saw be more apt?–thick as thieves. Riegle is recorded as receiving $200,900 from S&L officials and PACs between January 1981 and May 1990–second only to California’s Senator Pete Wilson ($243,334). Now that S&L money is seen to be tainted, Riegle has scrambled to redeem his reputation by returning $120,000 of it. But the commercial banks have stuffed his pockets too, and there is no record of his having returned any of that money.

          Recently Greenspan–that trustworthy fellow who guaranteed the morality of Keating and was one of the chief boosters of junk-bond purchases by S&Ls–guided his Fed colleagues into a disastrous decision. They ruled that J.P. Morgan (Morgan Guaranty Trust) could trade and sell corporate stocks. With this cloven hoof in the door, other banks will follow, and that will be the death of the Glass-Steagall Act, which Congress passed in 1933 to separate commercial banks from investment banks and thereby control some of the outlawry that had caused thousands of banks to fail. Next they will probably be targeting the Bank Holding Act of 1956, which was intended to keep banking out of commerce, and the McFadden Act, which limits interstate banking.

          What Greenspan, Seidman and their gang say to critics is, Oh, we want banks to be banks, too, but we want them to be universal banks. Which can be translated to mean uncontrolled banks, banks completely unfettered by regulations that restrict their operations–in short, pretty much a return to the reckless and lawless 1920s and early 1930s, which, if measured by the drama and excitement of collapsing financial structures, had it all over the 1980s.

          Brumbaugh, for one, is dumbfounded by what he’s seeing. “The administration and Congress just don’t want to acknowledge the problem,” he says with a sigh. “This is déjà vu all over again. You can’t believe it’s happening, but there it is.”
          Robert Sherrill, The Nation, November 19 1990
          http://goo.gl/7qS2I

  22. Just some figures I put together re: The Troika’s demanded 20% cuts in the Greek minimum wage.

    Their minimum wage now stands at roughly 751.00 euro per month, if the cuts go ahead this will mean approximately that it will stand at about 3.74 euro per hour, 138.38 per 37 hr. week & 7195.00 per annum, Europe’s Mexico ?

    Portugal’s rate is about 6.66 euro per hr & Ireland’s 8.65 euro. I wonder whether the Troika will be happy with these rates in our Golem defined ” Race to the bottom”

    The above are rough calculations just to make a point, I hope they are correct, if they are wrong I apologise & hope the error is one that benefits Greek families.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

  23. Hello. Really enjoying some of the discourse here. Not meaning to be flippant but perhaps we could do with some intercourse – ideas having sex. 😉 I’m not much on economy … or much else, but I believe in the power of the interdisciplinarial …

    “When all is said and done there is only one definition of power that has any authentic meaning for man. We have seen all through these pages that man is the animal in evolution who lives a series of paradoxes on which his distinctive humanity is based. So much so that we can say that his fate is to live in the teeth of paradoxes. For an animal with such fate, what would his distinctive strength be? it would have to be the ability to support contradictions,ambiguities, since his own distinctive nature is based on them and is rife with them. Power for man, as the genius of Hegel saw, is the ability to support contradictions, nothing less. It is amazing how we misread reality, how we see power in all the wrong places, all the wrong forms, forms which have nothing to do with our dinstinctive problems. We think we see power in the people with sure beliefs, unshakable convictions, smug self-confidence. Yet these are psychological weaknesses on a planet which is fluid and full of surprises. We think we see power in the ability to dominate and coerce others. Yet history has taught us that such power inevitably makes a slave of and destroys the manipulator whether it be a man or a nation. We think we see power in number, in the deafening chorus of mass enthusiasms and the solid wall of shared opinions. Yet history daily teaches us that nature has no respect for even unanimous misperception of reality, and she has the coldest equanimity for the entusiasms that carry whole popluations into rapture. Nature could only respect the power that typifies a nature, and for man this must be the power to live and endure the paradoxes of his own.” The Birth and Death of Meaning, Ernest Becker.

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