[ corporatists/banks will neg lower price than actual/current value. Bc (1) inflation (2) no-repayments/delayed repayment/default (3) lower repayment rates in future than expected bc of econ. et al. Tories selling gov assets at firesale prices because of its fetish w the deficit caused by the bank bailout. ] But Hillman raised concerns about whether the sale would result in taxpayers getting value for money, saying: “We saw in Gordon Brown’s sale of the government’s gold and also in Vince Cable’s sale of Royal Mail how hard that is to achieve and how controversial it can be if the price paid comes to seem too low.

“Ministers will say the underlying legislation only allows sales that are good value for money, but it takes time to know if that has happened in practice.”

BREXIT SENDS SIGNAL YOU ARE NOT WELCOME. // Financial Services 70bn for Treasury (Philip Hammond), not including the english law services, (international) consulting, and all the contractors, shops, consumption coming from good salaries. London is biggest exporter, if ther would be no London, trade deficit £ would be twice as big. // http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Pages/authorisations/passporting/default.aspx

Could you come up with $2,000 in 30 days if you had to? As many as 40 percent of American families can’t, despite the improving economy. //&! youtu.be/jguYzvHp6qE //&! The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans / Summit on the Economy
- making it month to month - youtu.be/VXkJ9bf1A8U //&! The Financial Crisis Is Forcing America To Redefine Their Values - youtu.be/Em02NgDczT4

deflationary trap/liquidity trap - orthodox monetary policy w austerity = stagnation. & west is exporting deflation. // if it is good for consumers ... break up banks. // hedging is BS ... you double the system you double the risk. [...] banks are now bigger! ... ban most derivatives, and reintroduce glass stegall // Black-Schoeles - there is no such think as risk free rate and no such thing as the past reflect the future. risk is not equally distributed. [...] VAR is flawed. //

Well-capitalized banks are supposed to have double-digit capital levels while making low risk investments.

Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, has a capital level of less that 3% (just like Lehman), and an incredibly risky asset base that boasts notional derivatives exposure of more than $70 trillion, roughly the size of world GDP.

Even the IMF has stated unequivocally that Deutsche Bank poses the greatest risk to global financial stability.

And the IMF would be right… except for all the other banks.

Because, meanwhile in Italy, nearly the entire Italian banking system is rapidly sliding into insolvency.

Italian banks are sitting on over 360 billion euros in bad loans right now and are in desperate need of a massive bailout.

IMF calculations show that Italian banks’ capital levels are among the lowest in the world, just ahead of Bangladesh.

Karl Polanyi [...] limits of the market, what applies to family budget does not apply to state as whole or even global economy. [...] min 9 - UK can't go back. UK WILL HAVE HARD TIME TO REBALANCE ECONOMY! AWAY FROM FINANCE. IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE! If half the services and finance leaves london post-brexit. uk will be much much poorer down the line. [...] UNTIL THE 20% are hit, the talk will be that the other 80% (a part of society cut by class, age, ideology & identity = no collective) will have to adjust and is asked to just borrow more to afford your lifestyle (student debt)! FORECAST is for VOLATILITY, FRAGILITY, UNCERTAINTY, ... until the 20% gets hit. [...] min 14 people care about how they feel/emotions. not facts on whitepaper.

[ current account deficit only affordable (thus also living standards) bc of City of London ] This is a man who writes without irony about “financial parasitism”. In The City: London and the Global Power of Finance, he seeks to document just how the UK and the US extract their pound of flesh from the rest of the world by dominating the financial flows that make international trade possible.

He argues that London’s leading role in foreign exchange trading, derivatives and overseas lending is an extension of its imperialist past. Creating complex financial products and charging for them has enabled the sector to requisition for the UK and London — and, of course, bankers themselves — a disproportionate share of the benefits of global trade. [...] [ extracting value from around the world channelling it back ] &! Novara Media interview - bit.ly/297c6D3

Deutsche Bank has over €515 billion in “positive derivative values” in comparison to €496 billion in “negative derivative values”.

the odds of another crisis are higher than a rally to fresh records. [...]
“The 2009-2015 rally originated from two main drivers: a massive stimulus, and credit expansion in China,” said Goette, who’s a partner at his firm in Zug, Switzerland and helps oversee 1 billion Swiss francs ($1 billion).

“European earnings have not followed suit so far. Skepticism regarding central-bank operations has started to emerge.”

At the top of page 11, the Federal regulators reveal that they have “identified a deficiency” in JPMorgan’s wind-down plan which if not properly addressed could “pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States.” Why didn’t JPMorgan’s Board of Directors or its legions of lawyers catch this?

It’s important to parse the phrasing of that sentence. The Federal regulators didn’t say JPMorgan could pose a threat to its shareholders or Wall Street or the markets. It said the potential threat was to “the financial stability of the United States.” [...] “…the default of a bank with a higher connectivity index would have a greater impact on the rest of the banking system because its shortfall would spill over onto other financial institutions, creating a cascade that could lead to further defaults. High leverage,

3rd bailout loan $0 went to Greece. All to pay off banks. extend & pretend. 1st: ~90% went to the banks. [...] ESM does not exist [...] banking union plan not progressing at all. //&! Yanis Varoufakis @Oxford Union - youtu.be/zWB6lY2GBjQ - ACADEMIA LACKS ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT ATTITUDE! Because going against the grain has become anti-reputation. [...] it's all about expectations, predictions about where S&P500 will be in 12 months. [...] regression between theory and reality. economists have never been humble. [ see Wall Street cottage factory of analysis and prediction shops ] [...] if you torture the data and model enough it will confess. [< EU monetary union based on theory ] [...] [34:00] Brussels is technically incompetent and will not reform itself. I am a libertarian marxist. Schumpeter. true creative destruction. great wealth currently created - all going to 1%. = not humanitarian. not democratic. [...] 41:00 Q&A, <48:50> gov budget not same as household budget; George Osborne.

gains are harder to come by! low hanging fruit gone. [...] VISION IS NEEDED TO GET THE JOB DONE.

"The European Union has the capacity to absorb a large flow of migrants, one million per year in terms of inflow net of outflow," he said.
"This is exactly what we had between 2000 and 2010 and this was working in the sense that unemployment was being reduced.
"The problem is - with the austerity policies and with the recession - now we are in a situation where it's very difficult in particular with southern Europe, with the terrible economic situation that we have created there in particular." [...] The population of the EU has only risen by 0.2% a year since 1995, he argues, compared to 1.2% for the world's population over the same period.
According to Eurostat, the official statistical arm of the European Commission, a total of 3.4 million people came to the EU during 2013. Some 2.8 million left, leaving a net immigration figure of around 600,000. [S]low growth [...] exacerbated not just by a lack of immigration but also by austerity policies aimed at reducing public expenditure. [EU in recession 2011 forward]

Blanchflower: Global economy "feels a little bit like 2008" Interest rates will likely fall further in Britain and remain at near record low levels until 2021, [...] Blanchflower described the backdrop to the committee's decision in March 2009 to cut rates to 0.5% as catastrophic. He said the MPC at the time had wished to avoid a death spiral. Britain was plunged into its deepest-ever recession in 2008 as confidence in banks collapsed and investment dried up. "We cut rates in November 2008 by 150 basis points (1.5%). It was clear that we should have cut by more but didn't because of the panic that it might have caused," he said. "It was absolutely clear that this (the financial crisis) was something we had not seen in a generation. We learned that the scale of the shock was enormous." [...] mortgage rates are 31% lower than before the crisis, while savers may have lost £106bn due to record low rates. //&! bbc.in/1YeqV87 &! bbc.in/1LGOxAf - central banks understated deflation pressure!

BIS 100% of private debt and finance sector larger than 3.9% of economy bad ... and siphoning off talent from more productive fields of work. And finance favours lending to property and land (low productivity). [...] financial products (derivatives) do not help economy. is just a financial product, fee collection. rentier! rent-seeking behaviour! fees fees fees. (JP Morgan, 89% of profits, see interview) [...] QE reflated asset prices/share prices! // In the second half, Max interviews David Graeber about his new book, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy.

In order to generate artificial economic growth, the ECB wants banks to make as many loans as possible, no matter how stupid or idiotic. They believe that economic growth is simply a function of loans. The more money that’s loaned out, the more the economy will grow. This is the sort of theory that works really well in an economic textbook. But it doesn’t work so well in a history textbook. Cheap money encourages risky behavior. It gives banks an incentive to give ‘no money down’ loans to homeless people with no employment history. It creates bubbles (like the housing bubble from 10 years ago), and ultimately, financial panics (like the banking crisis from 8 years ago). Banks are supposed to be conservative, responsible managers of other people’s money. When central bank policies penalize that practice, bad things tend to happen.

Neil Irwin, author of The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire, joins hosts Felix Salmon of Fusion, Cathy O’Neil of mathbabe.org, and Slate’s Moneybox columnist Jordan Weissmann. This week is all about Neel Kashkari of the Minneapolis Fed's new solution for our too-big-to-fail banks. //!& breaking up has complexity ... financial-industrial complex! //

Growth is tepid, productivity is poor, and inflation is too low: all is not going according to policymakers’ masterplans [...] As far as the OECD is concerned, monetary policy is being forced to take too much of the strain. Its chief economist Catherine Mann made the point that lasting recovery required three things: stimulative monetary policy; activist fiscal policy; and structural reform. The OECD wants the second of these ingredients to be added to the recipe in the form of increased spending on public infrastructure, something it says would more than pay for itself at a time when governments can borrow so cheaply.

The former Bank of England governor says in his new book that imbalances in the global economy makes a crash inevitable [...] GFC was the fault of the financial system, not individual greedy bankers, in his new book, The End Of Alchemy: Money, Banking And The Future Of The Global Economy [...] “Without reform of the financial system, another crisis is certain, and the failure ... to tackle the disequilibrium in the world economy makes it likely that it will come sooner rather than later,” Lord King wrote. [...] global central banks were caught in a “prisoner’s dilemma” - unable to raise interest rates for fear of stifling the economic recovery, the newspaper reported. [... blame] broken financial system. [...] failure of a system, and the ideas that underpinned it, [...] “Only a fundamental rethink of how we, as a society, organise our system of money and banking will prevent a repetition //&! dailym.ai/21tPG5y

growth at all cost - is gone. // What's the math? - "Hype Smoothie" - how mutual funds and private equity value their investments?

ind.pn/1Qc5SxH bit.ly/1KJQjAE bit.ly/1SV92vy bit.ly/1oBBh5k [ 2nd jobs bc first does only cover bills ] Even if Talia was the most frugal millennial in all the land, she’d still be living beyond her means. In the Bay Area, that is shockingly easy to do, thanks in part to companies like her former employer that have driven rents sky-high with no ceiling in sight. Income inequality is a huge problem in this country, especially in the Bay Area. Yelp’s answer to that, by the way, appears to be to just move the lower wage jobs to Phoenix, rather than pay the employees it has in San Francisco more. Charming. //&! https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/702488056645992449 - women in the workplace ... //&! https://twitter.com/polotek/status/702025499782950912 bootstap yourself

Wohl dem, der Immobilien, Anteile an Familienfirmen oder Sammlerobjekte besitzt. Die Preise für Vermögenswerte sind 2015 so stark gestiegen wie kaum je zuvor. Schlechter sieht es für Normalsparer aus.

[ Lord Adair Turner book & Richard Koo; banks tend 2 lend 2 property & land rather than productivity/businesses. risk averse, if the family cant pay the mortgage any more, than at least u have not lost all the money! less risky! Its also partly rentier behaviour of banks. // also BOE has to be concerned about future disposable income; rent & utilities eating up 50%-75% of income thus less for consumption! ] “Landlords’ balance sheets are looking healthier than at any point since 2014, and property investors are looking at an excellent rate of return from their portfolios.” Gill warned that changes to stamp duty announced in chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement and due to take effect on 1 April – people selling buy-to-let investments will pay an extra 3% – were bad news for landlords. But overall, the “consistent and developing lack of housing for across all tenures, for a spiralling population” meant the level of demand for rental properties would not reduce, he said.

extraction of fat. no skin in the game. // Privatisation of housing stock - social and affordable, anglo saxon capitalism style; profit maximisation, dividends. // after Goldman Sachs the new vampiresquid // no skin in game; get money for speculation from pension funds, other investors, mutual funds. << that is the system! // nur wer geld hat, kann es vermehren. // nearly no governance, no guidelines regarding sustainability, ethics, transparency, morals. // no regulation = big profit and exploitation, corruption, bribery.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuschreckendebatte // companies turned into financial instruments. // fictionalisation of economy // >> money spend (debt) on hostile takeover/LBO/MBO/M&A are tax deductible! << = invest in debt, rather than equity! & carried interest is only taxed at 15% max. still can reduce it w deductions xyz. // !!! NO SKIN IN THE GAME !!! Nassim Taleb //

worship culture of success. [...] jail is for poor people. [...] securities fraud go jail free w fine, and do benefit/welfare fraud, go straight to jail! // For Profit Bail System - on YouTube Vice Channel. //&! Matt Taibbi, "The Divide" - youtu.be/k4CohXkdR0w //&! Matt Taibbi: Minding the Wealth Gap - youtu.be/KiRe1PK3zkM //&! Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Jail: Matt Taibbi, Bernie Sanders Town Hall 2013 - youtu.be/d-nh8DYJvlM //&! Matt Taibbi: The Conspiracy To Destroy Our Pensions - youtu.be/ZIDfyfXDGME //&! Matt Taibbi explores US criminal injustice with Bill Maher - youtu.be/uS9LHBPTM7A //&! The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap (w/ Matt Taibbi) - youtu.be/iFl-o7qJHaY

"There are not perfect markets, and there is no perfect planner. [...] we will never arrive at perfect solutions. [...] market will never allocate perfectly ... [...] market will always tend to lend to property and land, and less into productive means (businesses = risk of 100 loss, land or property ... you have a loss when you sell it. << China, UK ) [...] not all credit is good credit. [...] need for macroprudential policy to dampen bubbles bc rate hikes could dampen normal non-speculative area of economy. ie loan to value limits [...] interest rate setting is blunt hammer that people though is the magic wand along the line of self-regulation, free market, neoliberalism and trickle-down [...] GFC can be traced back to the 60-70's - macroecon + micro with absurd assumptions (ie rational expectations, equilibriums, no bubbles) & math & pure theoretical base (no empirical analysis ie of what banks really do ie greed) = makes job of economist as policy advisor real easy.

[ gov is not co-owner of private property! Make away with Nurse Bursaries and other gov support for education. But support the property price! by keeping supply always lower than demand. and use policy to increase demand w subsidies! where to put their savings! & subsidy for builders ] Rising house prices across much of England mean a government scheme to help buyers of newbuild property may have made more than £200m for the Treasury in its first two-and-a-half years. The help-to-buy equity loan scheme gives buyers an interest-free loan for five years in return for a percentage stake in their property. When the home is sold, the buyer returns the same percentage of the sale price, meaning that any fall or rise in house prices affects the return. Analysis by property firm Hometrack and shared with the Guardian suggests that a surge in house prices in some areas means the total value of homes bought through the scheme since its launch in April 2013 has increased by more than £1bn.

Concerns raised over reports that the education secretary wants to appoint an American with a record of resisting unions to replace Sir Michael Wilshaw [...] Morgan is reportedly looking overseas to replace Michael Wilshaw, who will stand down in December. According to the Sunday Times, she is keen to recruit an outsider who has defeated union resistance to education changes abroad in order to raise school standards in the UK. [...] we’ve seen year after year, ministers are failing to recruit and retain enough teachers, threatening our future economic success and the prospects of young people in the global education race.” [...] Tensions between state school leaders and Ofsted have risen under Wilshaw’s reign, in part because of the threat of struggling schools being turned into academies after receiving critical inspections.

Whether sub-zero interest rates actually work is open to debate, however. So says Richard Koo, the chief economist of the Nomura Research Institute. “In my view,” he writes, “the adoption of negative interest rates is an act of desperation born out of despair over the inability of quantitative easing and inflation targeting to produce the desired results.” The failure of the BOJ and the ECB to meet their inflation and growth goals is shared by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. None of these central banks understand that their textbook solutions don’t fit the real economy, Koo asserts. [...] And on a more practical level, why corporations sit on record hoards of cash (taxes aside). [<< macro prudential policy ] //&! “When no one is borrowing money, monetary policy is largely useless.” [...] Keynes was right and (Milton) Freidman was wrong. - bit.ly/1Kl07Ri & There is no Confidence Fairy //&! fam.ag/1ogOOiM & bit.ly/1LpJL4W & bit.ly/1VgSjAB & bit.ly/214Icm3 & bit.ly/1Kl228n

7:50 New Normal is secular stagnation and decades-long NIRP, ZIRP, QE distortion. structural, secular. no cyclical recovery. but long secular challenges; prolonged period of low growth. // also inequality! // currently policy makers subsidise debtors, subsidise creditors - financial repression. promote risk taking. // richard koo would not agree with el-erian's notion that gov balance sheets are same as household balance sheets. // 12:10 demographic issue! political. and economic elements in it of secular stagnation. [...] borrowing growth // rise of far-right! // corps sitting on cash // inequality! // bc of lived in artificial world of borrowed growth, created massive divergence. // min 15:30 richard koo would not agree that central banks are the only game in town. central banks have complained abt austerity gov. // min 20 - Feds intellectually inflexible. comfort zone. self-regulation & great moderation. // reflation didnt work bc no fixed fundamentals // perfect storm! lost trust.

[ no skin in the game ] The man charged with leading an inquiry into the future safety of Britain's banks has said Bank of England plans are not strong enough. Sir John Vickers, who led the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) said: "The Bank of England proposal is less strong than what the ICB recommended." In a BBC interview, he added "I don't think the ICB overdid it." The Bank of England declined to comment. Specifically, it is the plans to make sure that banks have enough capital that Sir John has questioned. Capital is considered vital to a bank's safety, as it serves to protect it from sudden losses. It comes in many forms, but the most common is funding from shareholders, who expect a hefty return on the risk they are taking. The backdrop to this news is the current slump in bank share prices across Europe. Since the start of the year, European banking stocks have lost a quarter of their value. //&! bit.ly/1Xs0Bac

The sudden and sizable valuation markdowns of high-flying private companies like Snapchat, Dropbox and Zenefits by mutual fund investors has been one of the biggest stories in tech, sowing fears that the market is deflating. They’ve also caused consternation among founders, who have had to defend their companies’ earlier valuations to employees.

The tourist analogy comes from Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at the German financial company Allianz and former CEO of mutual fund giant Pimco. He fleshes out his theory of “tourist dollars” in his new book, The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse, describing what happens in emerging economies like Brazil and India when investors from the developed world respond to slow economies at home by seeking more profitable climates abroad. Ranjan Roy, a former emerging-market currencies trader who now runs a tech startup, wrote a Medium post this week connecting El-Erian’s “tourist” theory to the mutual fund investors that have flooded Silicon Valley with cash in recent years. The post was pretty convincing, so we decided to see if El-Erian agreed. He does. And he worries about what those tourist dollars are doing to the locals. [...] they don’t re-up [ like VC's and real Angels would do ] [...] push to stretch for return.

As oil prices have collapsed, it's become clear that Norway has caught what used to be called the Dutch disease - an overreliance on one industry, in this case the oil and gas sector. With its upmarket waterfront restaurants and the Barcode office blocks, the Sorenga dockside development serves as a poignant reminder of how prosperous Norway had become while the going was still good. [...] Unbalanced economy [...] "The oil and gas industry became too strong in our economy, especially during the last four or five years, reflects Prime Minister Erna Solberg. "Most of the growth came from that sector, and our strong currency left some of our traditional industries behind." [...] Household debts have reached more than 200% of annual disposable income [ Dutch Disease; UK & USA = domestic consumption, Germany = exports and its name, London = Finance and wealthy expats/non-doms, Switzerland = exports and its name , China = export, Brazil = commodity export ]

[ continued financialisation of economy / faustian pact ] QE and low interest rates have disproportionately created wealth in the financial sector and inflated asset bubbles. It has done little for the real economy. The rules of the market need to be rewritten [...] dominant policies during the post-crisis period – fiscal retrenchment and quantitative easing (QE) by major central banks – have offered little support to stimulate household consumption, investment, and growth. On the contrary, they have tended to make matters worse. In the US, quantitative easing did not boost consumption and investment partly because most of the additional liquidity returned to central banks’ coffers in the form of excess reserves. [...] private investment did not grow [...] [ QE supported only financial sector and zombie banks and corporations, little to nothing went into the real economy for investment in western world ] [ which leads us to say we are still in a banking crisis per se ]

Nevertheless, the UK’s goods trade gap with the rest of the world widened by £1.9bn to a record high of £125bn in 2015. Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “UK exports have clearly struggled in recent months, as they have been hampered by sterling’s overall strength in 2015, particularly against the euro, and moderate global demand. [...] Recent declines in the value of sterling are expected to support exports sales, though the deteriorating global situation could mitigate against an improved exchange rate. [...] “Nonetheless, any progress in reducing the trade deficit is likely to be extremely slow in the near term, leaving the recovery reliant on domestic demand.” [...] [ you can lower your corp tax, but if your country is shitty in business environment ie infrastructure and employee qualifications and immigration ... nobody wants to do business ]

The chancellor faces lower GDP and lower tax receipts as a result. So it’s vital that consumers’ desire to keep spending isn’t hit by a nasty shock from the Bank [ // Confidence Fairy // ] The Bank of England has downgraded its forecasts for the UK’s GDP growth and the outlook for wages, most likely robbing the exchequer of vital income tax receipts. And without the funds to maintain pensions and health service spending, his critics will gleefully play back the speech from last November during which he declared that Britain was on the road to becoming “the most prosperous and secure of all the major nations of the world”. [...] Yet his words ring hollow when so many of the post-crash problems are still with us, from the burden of high private and public debts to Europe’s rapidly ageing population, which encourage saving over investment, and a reluctance from government and big business to boost capital spending.

Zinsen spielen bei der Geldanlage fast keine Rolle mehr. Die Ökobank GLS erwägt jetzt einen radikalen Schritt: Die Kunden sollen einen Monatsbeitrag zahlen, damit die Bank nicht in fragwürdige Geschäfte gedrängt wird.

The UK economy currently gets nowhere near its target of 2%. Inflation would decrease the value of current debts, making them less of a burden. In a world without much inflation, it is hard to get wages up. The worse case scenario is that debt costs increase, as prices and wages stagnate. [ ignoring debt and income growth - stagnation at their peril - youtu.be/KIaXVntqlUE - gov is no household budget, Steve Keen + Richard Koo ] [...] And in this age of austerity, these factors will work against governments seeking to reduce the welfare bill. Recent data shows that, in UK cities, growing numbers of low paid jobs have led to rising claims for welfare such as housing benefits, defeating the government’s aims to reduce spending.

Fred Block discusses his book “The Power of Market Fundamentalism,” which extends the work of the great political economist Karl Polanyi to explain why free market dogma recovered from disrepute after the Great Depression and World War II to become the dominant economic ideology of our time. // wo state role there would be no market system. // need social democracy in complex diverse society - representing people // freedom in complex diverse society = free of hunger and economic uncertain & freedom of nonconformity - protections, no marginalisation, no economic punishment // social democracy and free market are both Utopias // Thatcher & Co blaming State for malaise! nobody likes technocratic arguments, leaves public out, thus was able to make big return. // wealth creation through efficiency route takes more work and capital than predation (rentier/rent seeking) - ie relaxing fuel efficiency savings regulation for Detroit back in the days // trust that state can support innovation

Confidence Fairy - Paul Krugman. (sov debt crisis) only applicable if you don't have a central bank. like Greece. that can do QE as much as you need to stabilise monetary system. ie stop deleveraging, only serving debt. meaning deflation. // different QE, diversity. shift risk appetite to more riskier debt. ... // fiscal activism can't overcome austerity ... // UK has it work because it doesn't have the manufacturing base. but its population is growing, not shrinking. but job creation - multiplier to economy is 1 or lower because of mostly service sector job creation which lot need to access welfare state through tax credits. // min 11. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling did lots right! GPB depreciation. budget deficit growth. But imports stayed high!!! current account deficit and trade deficit. Austerity undermines growth and BOE policy! cut you future and investment (4-1 ration). UK got no credibility bonus from bond vigilantes, no FDI inflows.

free education / land value tax / higher inheritance tax / abolition of private education / more progressive taxation / combat tax avoidance and tax evasion / ... Universal Basic Income //&! New Theoretical Perspectives on the Distribution of Income and Wealth Among Individuals - youtu.be/RO8KWTb2iPM - w Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman --- distinguishing between wealth and capital. ignore land (free yourself from Ricardo). land. credit. //&! David Cay Johnston: The Perils Of Our Growing Inequality - David Cay Johnston about his new book, Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. - youtu.be/ok7ZJ8mS19Y

The other common feature that Kregel notes is that the major objective of active, global financial institutions no longer is the maximization of profits by seeking the lowest cost funds and channeling them to the highest risk-adjusted return. Rather, they are most interested in maximizing the amount of funds intermediated in order to maximize fees and commissions, thereby maximizing the rate of return on bank capital. This means a shift from continuous risk assessment and risk monitoring of funded investment projects that produce recurring flows of interest payments over time, to the identification of riskless "trades" that produce large, single payments with as much of the residual risk as possible carried by the purchasers of the package. The upshot is that most derivative packages mask the actual risk involved in an investment and increase the difficulty in assessing the final return on funds provided.

economic history - "state spending inherently unproductive." // borrowing is deferred taxation - David Richardo - Rational expectations. Market economy always tended full employment. // Theory and Facts did not align. Keynes realised it post-war. Private investment is inherently volatile, ie slump conditions. state to offset underinvestment of private sector and match their retreat. getting rid of abnormal unemployment. done through monetary expansion (QE) and put onto state balance sheet available to spend. // Where 2009 forward QE got to banks ... // Paul Krugman - Confidence Fairy. // "Look after employment, and the budget will look after itself." but today it's the bond holders confidence who shapes budgets. // Keynes 'it is the long-term confidence of businesses that shape investment, confidence in state to no let a slump happen again.' but austerity, out of ammo talk, political-, social environment/sentiment & Osborne's '2016 will be tough year' speech were counter-productive.

BOJ shock decision to adopt negative interest rates, in an attempt to protect the flagging economy from market volatility and fears over the global economy. In a 5-4 vote, the bank’s board imposed a 0.1% fee on deposits left with the Bank of Japan (BoJ) – in effect a negative interest rate. The move, which follows the similarly aggressive precedent set by the ECB in June 2014, is designed to encourage commercial banks to use excess reserves they keep with the central bank to lend to businesses. //&! The Disturbing Reasons Why The Bank Of Japan Stunned Everyone With Negative Rates - bit.ly/1UvpOyO - encouraging capex, supporting existing bubbles ie equity and bonds (joining draghi). Citing examples of Sweden and Switzerland with NIRP. And ECB of combining QE and NIRP. Combating China exporting deflation. And keep the pace of JGB purchases, keeping the bubble floating. [A] "last-ditch measure"[.] [I]t may be time to panic. - 2016/2017 //&! Currency War - bit.ly/1QwOGox

faustian pact they've made. getting funded their elections by greedy crony capitalists. and are thus beholden to their calls they make and the framework they said they would give them funding for their campaign under. // "breakdown of internal controls [...] 60% of loans in possible portfolio did not meet its own standards, were still bought, put into portfolio" - Citigroup exec // Underfunded/understaffed/non-experience/no-stars @FBI and CIA! corporates have a bigger pocket and star lawyers who know how to position and spin. And without a Whistleblower/Leak it is nearly impossible if not for the case that the accused was really stupid and left a clear trail and or incriminates himself in paperwork/communication. // "criminal intent" //&! No Regrets at Countrywide - bloom.bg/1UptWQC //&! Countrywide’s Mozilo Said to Face U.S. Suit Over Loans - bloom.bg/1RMqPEA //&! NEW SUIT - No, the US government hasn’t forgotten about Countrywide founder Angelo Mozilo - bit.ly/1lQbEfD

The same institutions that were parading their restraint, largesse and deep concern for humanity in Davos last week are condemned in the movie by the designer of the “short”, Mark Baum, in the following terms: “We’re living in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking. But in government, education, food, religion, journalism, prisons, baseball ... Somehow, American values became: Fuck it, let’s grab what we can for now and the hell with tomorrow.”

Carney said that collapsing oil prices and an "unforgiving" global environment meant that tighter monetary policy was not yet necessary. [...] He pointed out that the Fed's rate rise had only brought the US interest rate to the same "lofty level" as the Bank of England's. The Governor said that three factors would be the strongest guide to when interest rates might rise. First, that economic growth in the UK would be higher than the average trend. He said that growth at an average quarterly rate of 0.5% in 2015 had "disappointed". Second, that wage growth strengthens and productivity improves. And, third, that core inflation starts to approach the target rate of 2%. //&! Rate rise pause till early 2017? - bbc.in/1T1Qrge - [ global risks are building, global imbalances, faultlines. ] There's a frying pan - the global growth slowdown - and a fire - high levels of indebtedness - out there. &! bbc.in/1S5N7ks

most profitable credit card debt customers are those making just the minimum payment. ... a credit card being a statement of status! retaining customers by upgrading them regularly w higher limits, new colors, new perks (they will never use). // unsecured lending - DEFINITION of 'Unsecured Loan' A loan that is issued and supported only by the borrower's creditworthiness, rather than by a type of collateral. An unsecured loan is one that is obtained without the use of property as collateral for the loan. // revolving debt // the higher your credit limit, the more you are likely to spend. // half of his income to just serve credit card fees and interest charges (no payments towards paying down) debt ... // banks lend irresponsibly bc they know they can get away with it, or somebody else will do it! because there is not regulation. no bank oversight. //&! The Truth about Payday Loans :Young, British and Broke - youtu.be/-yWxTvffbuE //&! Gambling/Betting Shops on Highstreet.

the world’s grand experiment with debt has come to an end. And it’s now unraveling. [...] The next thing is to give money to Main Street. [...] Either way, money will be printed out of thin air and given to you. That’s what’s coming next. Possibly after a failed attempt at demanding negative interest rates from the banks. But coming it is. [...] Once people lose faith in their currency all bets are off. The smart people will be those who take their fresh central bank money and spend it before the next guy.

China's Credit Bubble popped. &! Could China Trigger the Crash of 2016? - youtu.be/JRw8JgP-L0A //&! IMF: "Age of America" Will End 2016: Steve Forbes on China - youtu.be/YxCxHM5Ax_k //&! Has The Crash of 2016 Now Begun? What Can & Should Be Done? - youtu.be/JwEDvXYVE_g - Richard Wolff, austerity failed what has been promised "business confidence." Smart money unloading started in 2015. "Silly China-bashing." China has capacity (over capacity) but western world has reached its credit limit! << youtu.be/L4J_n9pTdJQ codependent. //&! youtu.be/ORRPNO2XPDA - still too much debt, austerity flaws, no income growth to serve debt and not cut back on spending (private households), China exporting deflation.

individuals were not held responsible. [...] when things look benign you have to be very vigilant.

PPI scandal, mis-selling of SWAPS, ...

More than half of the world’s arable land is moderately or severely degraded, according to a report published on Tuesday by the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative (pdf). The report estimates the cost of this environmental destruction, not only from lost agricultural production and diminished livelihoods, but also from the lost value of ecosystem services formerly provided by the land, including water filtration, erosion prevention, nutrient cycling and the provision of clean air. [...] “We should look at realigning the incentive structure that we have away from incentives that degrade the land to those that promote sustainable management,” [...] reduction in biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services.”

In other words, it's swept under the corporate carpet. Often, the old leadership is sacked or quietly moves on, and new leaders want to start afresh, he says. "We don't like being reminded of our mistakes."

We are now in the seventh year of a cyclical recovery and bull market. Shares have tripled in that time frame. I would say this means we are much closer to the end of the business cycle than the beginning. Moreover, as Jeremy Grantham is quoted in the Business Insider piece, profits are mean-reverting and right now they are reverting from a phase that is “wildly optimistic” according to Warren Buffett. All of this is taking place against the backdrop of an economy in which wage growth is weak, household debt is still relatively high on a historic basis as a percentage of income and we have no policy room on the monetary side, with limited political appetite for policy on the fiscal side. To me, the pre-conditions for this profits recession speak to downside risk, ....

Dr Margaret Chan and Mike Bloomberg call for higher taxes on tobacco. The evidence is clear: raising tobacco taxes cuts usage, encourages smokers to quit and discourages young people from picking up the habit in the first place. The United Nations ought to encourage countries to raise tobacco taxes to support the world’s Sustainable Development Goals and reduce tobacco use.

via - http://schiffgold.com/interviews/former-wall-street-insider-some-form-of-bank-bail-ins-will-come-to-us-video/ ||&! QE and ZIRP bad policy, bank and market cuddeling. no mainstreet recovery! trickle-down failed. Private sector can not carry existing minimal momentum forward. policy has not helped people on the ground. // many bubbles created: junk bond/zombie corps, car loans, student loans, property, ... // transition to destruction, volatility is first sign. // market manipulation! // inflated financial system // rise in NPL! where how will they cover that? another bailout? or bail-in. taking depositors haircut. FDIC can't cover that all.

[ has to put away 10% of disposable income/earnings ?pre-tax?, put it in equities, and open the envelope only after 60-70 years. ] The average 35-year-old has to save £660,000 into a pension plan if they have any hope of matching the standard of living enjoyed by today’s pensioners – but have so far managed to put aside just £14,000.

Fund says governments in emerging markets should prepare now for a new credit crunch because of a 10-year corporate borrowing binge [...] “Shocks to the corporate sector could quickly spill over to the financial sector and generate a vicious cycle as banks curtail lending. Decreased loan supply would then lower aggregate demand and collateral values, further reducing access to finance and thereby economic activity, and in turn, increasing losses to the financial sector,” the IMF warns. [...] “Emerging markets must prepare for the adverse domestic stability implications of global financial tightening,” the IMF says.

This Thatcherite policy revival fails to recognise that the main cause of the housing crisis is affordability //&! Housing bill needs radical, long-term measures to reform the market. As well as increasing supply, the government needs to use the tax system to make buy-to-let less attractive as an investment - bit.ly/1PDxWe3

The problem with rushing to combat any sign of economic or financial market turmoil by resorting immediately to counter-cyclical policies is that the creative destruction that would normally serve to purge speculative excess isn’t allowed to operate and so, misallocated capital is allowed to linger from crisis to crisis, making the next boom and subsequent bust even larger than the last.

- zero hedge had chart w student loan bubble standing at 1trn, and some, as of about mid 2015, with car loans about to reach 1trn, and credit card debt. just google 'zero hedge car loan' - Blackstone says car loans are now in "untested" territory - bit.ly/1TO6Gxb - "The takeaway here is simple: under pressure to keep the US auto sales miracle alive and feed Wall Street's securitization machine (which is itself driven by demand from yield-starved investors) along the way, lenders are lowering their underwriting standards and extending loans to underqualified borrowers. [...] This cannot and will not end well." // July - With the US consumer hunkering down in 2015 and barely spending more than in the comparble period last year, the only silver lining had been auto sales driven almost entirely by access to cheap credit; - bit.ly/1QBIWc5

"material" - based judgement. unter anderem.... ie also audience short vs long-term investor.

socialism for crony capitalism (Super Rich, 1%, 30% of top of society, babyboomers, asset owners - owners of commanding hights, bank bailout) - vs - people // Noam Chomsky, can't have (crony) capitalism and democracy //&! --- youtu.be/fzt_RNa_9BQ - What if Jeremy Corbyn actually wins the Labour leadership? | Owen Jones talks... - key are key messages! repeated. properly framed. unpenetrable by Tories highly skilled spin doctors and their usual campaign of fear (tool, lowest common denominator easiest to mass communicate and transmit in one sentence) to distract/divert from the truth ... 'oh my good, look over there!' ... peoples convenience and attention span and willingness to debate endanger what has been built. it is already dismantled. //&! bit.ly/1NxAriZ - Hostile Press!

B Round! doubling down on (to a certain point) proven ideas as they move to make themselves solid/viable (building business model & continued growth if not even putting some more gasoline on the fire with a B Round - allocation of resources). thus there is competition thus bidding up in a private market. BUT BUT also reflects the rising cost! Rising cost to grow, the war for talent to scale, and the cost in said hubs/ecosystems where the talent are already working on scaling other companies, where rent is sky high and space rare to expand office, ops, ramp up head count, ... // why, on a side note!, ? because global ZIRP, NIRP, QE, hunt for yield, FOMO, property speculation, alternative asset management and allocation (newly minted paper millionaers) have bid up prices in metropolitan and hot cities by credit bubbles around the world. bc financial markets are global, thus your allocation/diversification is global, not limited where ur home addr is. adding to volatiliy too bc of froth!

Relying too much on the wrong instrument, monetary policy, unconventional QE2 & 3 >> little domestic positive impact but spilled over much across the world! // consequences now seen (1) taper tantrum late 2014 & then summer 2015; china slow-down/equity crash & taper anticipation moves followed up by pulling money out of emerging/developing markets! financial market are divergent from domestic business market. cycles shifted apart slightly. investor, business, financial market & consumer confidence are not linked as tightly before! // financial markets are now global, business markets itself not as much! money can be pulled out digitally in an instance. // no net-positive 4 whole world. selfishness. long-run danger. unintended consequences, unknown unknowns. // global sub-optimal monetary policy // global system (monetary system) broke // uncertainty, unknown of taper. timing debate. game of chicken. volatility bc of lots of froth, distortion! // &! youtu.be/SZe3issLIb8

[S]ubstantial evidence that lack of information plays a critical role in shaping the financial decisions people make. Consider how a vast majority of people who are currently defaulting on their student loans in the U.S. would be able to halt their financial suffering if they knew they could enroll in an income-based repayment plan that would shrink or eliminate their monthly payments. This map goes some way toward explaining why low-income students are less likely to enroll in college. If the idea that college is a risky investment is something thats gaining traction in well-to-do circles, then surely people who hail from less fortunate backgrounds are even more inclined to think the potential price is too high. // could be seen as balance sheet recession: rising cost of education - & on other side - unable 2 pay w job u can get (asset value). Education is mispriced in UK/USA in a new world going forward! >> youtu.be/_EDGTzOXa_g?t=1h46m5s