Bernanke's Words

Interesting depiction of what Bernanke said the other day.  If you want to make your own "word cloud" go here.

Commodity Paradigm Shift?

According to Jeremy Grantham that is what's recently occurred. If he's right, many people might be priced out of the market for just sustenance. Just wait until clean air is packaged and commoditized—it won't be long before we're all charged for a nice fresh breath!

Tokyo Real Estate Prices to Plunge?

There's no doubt that tsunamis will wreak havoc on waterfront property and I guess this is a generational awareness issue that will come up every 75 to a 100 years.  You can check here for the latest earthquake info in Japan and see that earthquakes strike several times a day.  Fortunately, they are mostly small and not capable of producing tsunamis. There may be some great deals coming up on water-front property near Tokyo!  They may be safe enough for your lifetime, depending on age of course.  The window of opportunity may be coming soon!

JP Morgan Pays for Screwing Military Families

Amazingly banks just keep doing the same thing year after year--taking advantage of the middle class and when they get caught, pay up.  "Boycott JP Morgan" and other banks with similar practices, will be the mantra when people decide enough is enough and they notice credit unions and local banks don't play the same games.  "Too big to fail" doesn't mean too big to just stop doing business with them.  

Levin-Cobun Senate Report Skewers Goldman Sachs

According to this recently released senate report:

"The evidence discloses troubling and sometimes abusive practices which show, first, that Goldman knowingly sold high risk, poor quality mortgage products to clients around the world, saturating financial markets with complex, financially engineered instruments that magnified risk and losses when their underlying assets began to fail. Second, it shows multiple conflicts of interest surrounding Goldman’s securitization activities, including its use of CDOs to transfer billions of dollars of risk to investors, assist a favored client make a $1 billion gain at the expense of other clients, and produce its own proprietary gains at the expense of the clients to whom Goldman sold its CDO securities.

Under Goldman’s sales policies and procedures, an affirmative action by Goldman personnel to sell a specific investment to a specific customer constituted a recommendation of that investment. Under federal securities law, when acting as an underwriter, placement agent, or 2007 broker-dealer recommending an investment to a customer, Goldman had an obligation to sell investments that were suitable for any investor and were not designed to fail. When acting in those roles and affirmatively soliciting clients to buy securities, Goldman also had an obligation to disclose material information that a reasonable investor would want to know, including material conflicts of interest or adverse interests in connection with its sale of a security."

Source: Wall Street & the Financial Crisis - Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, pg. 476

Bicycles In Japan

Bicycle sales are up in Japan due to the terrible earthquake that struck in March.

Globalization Isn't Working Out So Well for Americans

According the the Wall Street Journal:

"U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers, have been hiring abroad while cutting back at home, sharpening the debate over globalization's effect on the U.S. economy.  The companies cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show. That's a big switch from the 1990s, when they added jobs everywhere: 4.4 million in the U.S. and 2.7 million abroad.  In all, U.S. multinationals employed 21.1 million people at home in 2009 and 10.3 million elsewhere, including increasing numbers of higher-skilled foreign workers."

Senate Investigations Subcommittee Releases Levin-Coburn Report On the Financial Crisis

This report is coming in at 600 pages plus.  I haven't gotten through it all, but it is an easy read and very educational regarding all the shenanigans leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.  It's amazing no one high up in the food chain has gone to prison!
Note: If the link above doesn't work access here.

Mt. Everest '96 Climber Makes a Return Trip

Obama on Paul Ryan:

"This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for. So it's not on the level."  Democrats need to be saying this more and more.  All these Republicans concerned about the debt were completely silent as war criminal George W. Bush ran up the debt to record levels!

AP on AP and Changes in the News Industry

Informative Article on Japan's Bubble Days

It's old, from 1993, but it is so well written compared to modern popular web new's sites.

Hypocrisy and U.S. Policy

Syria and a number of other countries, Bahrain and Yemen for example, are cracking down and killing innocent civilians.  You'd think the U.S. would be up in arms to try to save these protesters for democracy.  Nope!  Silence and an indifferent look is all these folks are getting.  The U.S. speaks of democracy but only in as much as it aligns with its policies.  As soon as "democracy" clashes with the U.S.'s interests—not principles—any dictator or brutal regime will do!  The list is long where the U.S. cozies up with brutal thugs—Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Suharto in Indonesia—to name a couple (for a few more check this Salon article).  So the next time you hear "freedom, democracy and liberty" from the U.S. the words "propaganda" and Machiavellian should also come to mind.

Flexibility Saves Money

It's always nice when research backs up common sense.  Here's a story on how flexible work schedules not only benefit employees, but also employers by saving money.

Underwater Flying

Underwater flying has got to be on your list of things you've got to do.  Check out this video—you might not have the budget of Richard Branson, but in a few decades the price should be coming down.

Office Rents Fall in Tokyo

According to Bloomberg, "The average office rent in the Tokyo’s five main business districts of Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku and Shibuya in March fell to 17,495 yen per tsubo ($62 per square meter), the lowest ever in March, Miki Shoji said. One tsubo, a standard measure of property area in Japan, is 3.3 square meters, or 35.5 square feet. In February, the rent stood at 17,512 yen a month."

Richard Duncan on Banks, Financial Crisis

Also see here for more by Richard Duncan.

The Power of "No!"

I hope someday the people of the world stand up and say no when their government wants to send them to war.  The fact that the "war" in Afghanistan is still going on is criminal. It's as though a whole generation or two just completely forgot about Vietnam and commit to the same mistakes. It's such a futile exercise that will end in a complete void.  How many of our youth must sacrifice for such a vacuous policy.  Here's a little clip by Howard Zinn talking about war and aggression:



Here is Howard Zinn talking more about war:



And also this by Bill Moyer on Howard Zinn might be interesting

Congressman Dennis Kucinich on Libya

The Transcript can be found here.



And here is Congressman Kucinich on Democracy Now!

New Gmail Motion

Google, innovative as ever!

Even Reuters Will Attempt to Make News!

Recently PIMCO sold its treasury bond holdings stating that that wasn't where value is now.  Lots of reasons for that, but fair enough.  This Reuters article attempts to make news that PIMCO would buy treasury bonds again if the price comes down and they see value in them again—talking about stating the obvious!  I think it's just a case of having to say something, but it does reflect badly on them. 

Awashed in Debt and Turning a Blind Eye

This chart speaks for itself and the contrast between developed and the BRICs couldn't be clearer.  Something has got to give—there is no way developed countries can keep doing what they've been doing and expect to leave anything worth leaving to later generations. There are only so many choices: reduce spending, tax more, inflate your way out or debase the currencies.  I hope we don't have to watch our politicians drive us over the cliff!

Declarations of War and the U.S. Governement

The U.S. government has been engaged in war after war since it's inception.  There has hardly been a time when the U.S. is not at war.  This may be going back to Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex, but whether we had the industrial complex or not the U.S. found a war—sometimes  justified as World War II or sometimes a concoction like Bush's illegal Iraq war.  Take a look here to count up the wars.  Click on the headline to read a Congressional Research Report on declaring wars and authorizations for war.

Bloomberg: Miners Make More than Bankers