28 Friday Jan 2011
Workers saw their wages and benefits rise slightly faster in 2010 than 2009, but the gain was still the second-lowest increase in nearly three decades.
via Workers saw 2 percent rise in wages and benefits – Yahoo! News.
A 2% raise … wow, I haven’t received a raise since 2007. I’m jealous, but I’m still employed.
18 Wednesday Mar 2009
Yahoo Finance reports:
The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday, in a surprise move, said it will buy up to $300 billion worth of longer-term U.S. government debt over the next six months …
This is outright money printing, and in time will devalue the dollar and any assets held in dollars.
Update 3/20/2009: Here’s Richard Russel‘s take on this from his 3/19 post (subscription web site, well worth it IMHO)
Russell Comment — They’re calling it “The Rambo Fed.” Bernanke is not fooling around any longer. He’s playing all his cards. He’s going to put a floor under housing and boost asset prices in an all-out attack on the bear market. Bernanke wants to drive mortgage rates down and refinance housing at 3-4%. On the news, the dollar swooned, the Euro surged, the long T-bond exploded higher by six points, and the yield on the ten-year Treasury bond sank to 1.51%. Whew, what a day and what an announcement.
Late comment — We’ve now entered into the what I call “the land of unintended consequences.”
Here’s Peter Schiff’s take. Who’s he? Just someone who predicted the financial crisis about a year before it happened!
There is an old adage on Wall Street that no one rings a bell at major market tops or bottoms. That may be true in normal times, but as many have noticed, we are now completely through the looking glass. In this parallel reality, Ben Bernanke has just rung the loudest bell ever heard in the foreign exchange and government debt markets.
While nearly every facet of America’s economy has been devastated over the past six months, our national currency has thus far skipped through the carnage with nary a scratch.
This week the Federal Reserve finally made clear what should have been obvious for some time – the only weapon that the Fed is willing to use to fight the economic downturn is a continuing torrent of pure, undiluted, inflation. The announcement should be seen as a game changer that redirects the fury of the financial storm directly onto our shores.
In its statement, the Fed announced its intention to purchase an additional $1 trillion worth of U.S. treasury and agency debt. The purchases, of course, will be made with money created out of thin air through the Fed’s printing presses.
Now that the Fed has recklessly shown its hand, the mad dash to get out of Treasuries and dollars should not be far off. The more the Fed prints to buy bonds the less the dollar is worth.
His conclusion:
With such a policy in place, America has now become a banana republic. It won’t be too long before our living standards reflect our new status. Got Gold?
02 Thursday Oct 2008
Bob Moriarty writes an interesting post (short, worth reading):
I was sitting at the table on Saturday night trying to figure out which bills to pay. Times are tough. I owe $25 billion on my GM Visa card and they are bitching about payment. I’ve been paying the minimum and the bastards just raised my interest rate to 31%. My AIG Master Card is sitting at $85 billion and they want to lower my credit limit. Like where am I supposed to raise enough money to pay that down?
25 Thursday Sep 2008
And also:
Ron Paul Against the Bailout via kwout
Personally, I think those responsible for this massive fraud – that’s what it is – should be arrested, not bailed out.
07 Sunday Sep 2008
Government seizes control of GSEs – Yahoo! News via kwout
If socialism worked, the Iron Curtain would have been torn down from the other side. The welfare-warfare-police state expands itself yet again. What happened to free enterprise? I want my country back.
Oh, and I plan on buying some more gold tomorrow. What do you think happens to the value of the dollar when the criminals at the Federal Reserve create a few billion more of them out of nothing? You did know the value of the dollar is down over 95% since the creation of the Federal Reserve system in 1913, right?
Update 9/9/2008:
Dagny's Desk 