Those are crappy numbers, Bernanke is going to have to pull the only tool he has left - interest rates must go negative to save the economy....

Barney Frank says it's appropriate for Bernanke to already say "I told you so" to his critics:

http://dailybail.com/home/bernanke-tells....

I definitely feel it in the businesses that I own...so much so that I'm here telling you about it rather than working!

I'm in Iowa which has escaped much of the Depression the rest of the country went (is going) through...how?

1. Iowa is basically a giant farm.

2. The last couple of years have been a bonanza for farmers...great crops and great prices for them...

3. Farmers pockets were stuffed with money...buying trucks, equipment...as one farmer said of his new tractor "It's better than money in a bank"...Beranke would be pleased.

Now the tide has turned (as it always does)...the crops are approaching ZERO value for a big chunk of the state due extreme heat and lack of water...some are at the stage of not even bothering to harvest; it will be left in the field and plowed under in the spring.

Cattle/pig farmers are selling their stock for whatever they can get for it due to high feed prices and lack of water. The heat also stresses dairy cows resulting in less milk production combined with higher input costs...ouch!

10PM news the other day...farmer wishing he could return the new tractor he has on order...says he would back out...but part of the deal was they took his current unit in immediately as a trade...dealer sold it right away...smart!...so now the farmer is stuck with his new tractor and no crop to harvest...

Summary: Get ready for a bigger bill at the grocery store.

PS> I wouldn't be long restaurant stocks...eating out is struggling the way it is..wait till they raise prices to compensate for this farming disaster.

That must be why stocks have been rallying and are sitting at multi-month highs. Who would have guessed the S&P 500 would be this close to 1,400 at this point?

And to think they call "the market" a "discounting mechanism" is the absolute height of folly......

And hey, what happened to GS, calling for more down a month ago?
And what Karl said at the time -

Quote:

A challenging economic environment has made Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Noah Weisberger recommend shorting the S&P 500, or betting on further declines. He has a target of 1,285, or 3.1 percent below yesterday’s close.

“With incremental U.S. monetary policy on hold, the market will need to confront a deteriorating growth picture near term,” Weisberger wrote.

Genesis wrote..

Listening to anything Goldman Sachs says in a place where "ordinary people" can hear it has been a historically awful decision, often leading to you getting your face ripped off by the resulting move in the opposite direction.

Crappy numbers, but I am not sure if this is supportive of the collapse scenario at this point in time.

Fraudster, maybe not, but with Europe in recession and deepening and USA following, this could snowball rather quickly around the globe.

Perhaps Bert, but I do think we are a few years away from the real endgame. It will continue to grind down IMO, and then just fall apart rather quickly (again a few years from now).

I agree with Fraudster. I still believe "The Market" will make new highs before it all goes to **** for real.........

The numbers are not good all around - trillions of dollars and nothing to show for besides the little time it bought.

perhaps if oil goes to $130-$150 soon because of all this IS/IR/US BS we'll get to accelerate this collapse a bit.

Debt - don't feel too sorry for those farmers. Most have crop insurance. Mortgagefarmer gets paid 65% of yield of the average of the last 5 years. So if we averaged 150 bushels I'm going to get about 100 bushels. It's going to be about 8 bucks a bushel. I still make money.

Cost of the insurance - $10 an acre. So in effect they are saying they should only have to pay on this every 100 years or so. That isn't the case. I can remember 83 and 84 we didn't grow anything either. Who is the underwriter on this insurance? You'd want to short these idiots wouldn't you? They're gonna lose their ass this year. Oh! It's you and me and every other taxpayer.

Sales growth is decelerating, but companies still seem to be maintaining good margins, which is good enough for a market that is anticipating another bump priming from the Fed.

It looks like the market will keep going up for the rest of the year unless it doesn't hear a definitive QE announcement from the Fed within the next couple months.

So does Ben crash the Stock Market (No QE) or the dollar (QE).
Decisions, decisions...

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Perhaps Bert, but I do think we are a few years away from the real endgame.

i've been expecting endgame since 1973.
They seem able to keep us teetering on the brink forever - like riding a unicycle.
I've given up on the apocalypse and expect only more of the same.

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So does Ben crash the Stock Market (No QE) or the dollar (QE).

my thought? just like the proverbial frog in the pot.
Continued gradual dilution , with short bursts of hyperinflation ; next one to come right after elections.
Frogs of next generation are growing grow up accustomed to more heat.

Today it looks like i shoulda got back in market, guess i'm feeling low today.
What will tomorrow bring?

a.

I'm trying to figure out how negative rates would do anything? Negative means they give you back less than you have, which implies to me they would shrink the money supply. All I can say is negative this! Take out trillions in currency and put it in your matress.

The negative rates in Europe are not a bank policy, but a move of money to direct government guarantees. We hear how healthy the US banks are through the propaganda machine, but this is only in relation to the European banks, which are systematic bombs. It is hard to pay back what has already been consumed. This is why they can't fix this. You want an already eaten steak, you are going to have to accept a turd. Social Security fund is already spent and so is the government debt and much of the consumer debt as well. The Keynesian, monetarist models are bankrupt.

Fraudster said

Quote:

It will continue to grind down IMO, and then just fall apart rather quickly

I agree with that statement 100%. I predict that we will hit an inflation point and it will be over in no more than a week (at most).

Flap

Analog wrote..

i've been expecting endgame since 1973.
They seem able to keep us teetering on the brink forever - like riding a unicycle.
I've given up on the apocalypse and expect only more of the same.

Society hasn't been ripe for a collapse... until now. The right people are in the right places at the right times in their lives for something crazy to happen.

Analog wrote..

i've been expecting endgame since 1973.
They seem able to keep us teetering on the brink forever - like riding a unicycle.
I've given up on the apocalypse and expect only more of the same.

From the way I see it, there must be some reason for this sudden acceleration of increasingly blatant looting. It seems to me that multiple institutions are acting in concert, on schedule. It's been set up to collapse some time in the short term, for reasons we don't fully understand. It's difficult to say more without going into tinfoil mode. But why else would any person or institution engage in acts so intentionally destructive to the entire system unless the system was expected (or planned) to collapse anyway? The whole thing smells of conspiracy to me.

Flap said:

"I agree with that statement 100%. I predict that we will hit an inflation point and it will be over in no more than a week (at most)."

I don't see how inflation is compatible with your predictions of:

"Here are my predictions for everyone to see.
Before this is over you will see:
S&P 500 at 320, DOW at 2200, Gold $300/oz, and Corn $2/bu"

Could you explain? Thanks.

Mann,

Quote:

I'm trying to figure out how negative rates would do anything? Negative means they give you back less than you have, which implies to me they would shrink the money supply.

This I believe, would be true - "Negative means they give you back less than you have..." - at least for your savings. You pay them to hold your money for you.

But isn't the inverse also true? That "THEY" will pay you to hold their money? As in, you get paid to take out a loan or to borrow money? As it is now, you take out a mortgate at 3% and have to pay them back MORE than you borrowed. If you take out a loan at say, -2%, don't they pay you to hold or use their money? Or at least you pay them back less than you borrowed?

I think that is the theory behind negative rates. Injection of cash into the economy to get things going (again ~ ver 6.7...). Trying to get folks to make capital improvements or to make large / durable goods purchases, etc.

That's not to say that I believe it would work - at least not they way the theory might predict anyway. And also not to say that it wouldn't be harmful long term. As noted here on TF multiple times, 'you don't solve a debt problem - by going into more debt.'

And this would again be, a major piece of pulling demand forward. Or as Gen & Wimpy say, "I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today."

Think Sushi.... Mt Fuji....Geisha Girls....Kobe beef.....We are going Japanese

Heard Rush talking about math yesterday (god help us). We are staying zerobound for a long long long time, another 10-15 years. Don't lose sleep waiting for the **** to hit the fan (watch the replay if you missed it).

Bill Clinton's legacy is repealing Glass-Stegall (like it or not he owns it). Bush's legacy is overreacting to 911. Greenspan's legacy is as a moron, his appearance on 60 minutes is digitalized and speaks for itself. Obama's legacy is he is way over his head, a brain dead version of David Dinkins. Romney legacy will be using the constitution as newspaper for the cage on the roof of his vacation car.

Mp - I think Flap meant INFLECTION point... which fits.

Legundo, they wouldn't give us negative rates, at least if we were borrowing. The negative rates are for deposits at the Fed. It is the anti QE. The Fed can't give out money on assets and force anyone to deposit those funds with them. The absurd idea is that negative rates would force banks to lend money. I think they would merely speculate with it, but you might find your checking account bearing negative interest. I would suspect people would put their money into M-1 accounts where the banks would have to hold reserves. The only reason to keep money at the Fed is to not have to keep it in the vault, where it can be stolen. That said, the money could move from the Fed to the matress. Once the bear resumes and piles of municipal and junk debt goes bad, people are going to be done with doing stupid things with their money.

I am going to write a blog on what I believe is the truth. Anyone who hasn't figured it out, needs to realize the Social Security fund is debt for money that has already been spent. How much more of what we perceive to be savings, invested somewhere, is nothing but money that has already been spent, like a hamburger eaten yesterday? I would suspect the entire Federal debt fits in that category. A large part of the assets backing our bank deposits. Piles of bonds, used to finance stock buybacks and all kinds of ridiculous stuff. Remember, the TBTF banks love to buy back stock and every dime they have is borrowed.

Karl has brought this up from time to time. We have spent our future demand. Corporate profits depend on keeping this flow of money to fund the present out of the future going. Since more and more of the future has been spent, it takes more and more to keep up demand. This was part of the cartelization of American business, bringing in bank credit to accomplish this wonderful program. The problem is, the game is going to end. Someone up there thought it was going to end in 1973. No, debt was pretty small in 1973 and there wasn't any gold to stop them from inflating to the moon. We are in John Law territory now, where money has been leveraged onto the bulk of the home equity on earth, onto future generations through deficit spending, through the massive leverage of stock markets and so forth. The last game is to reflate to the max to create one more new asset to draw income to leverage. The problem is the incomes themselves have been all borrowed up. When the debt is found to be bad, the other side off the ship tilts and it all flips over. That is when people realize their bank accounts are disappearing, their retirement nest egg is not AAA, but defaulting junk and their stock portfolios deflate.

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No, debt was pretty small in 1973 and there wasn't any gold to stop them from inflating to the moon.

which they did, in 1973 a brand new Plymouth Valiant cost $1995.00
and a Chrysler Newport $2964.

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The last game is to reflate to the max ...

excuse me while i plod...

Quote:

re·flate

verb /riˈflât/ 
....
1.Expand the level of output of (an economy) by government stimulus, using either fiscal or monetary policy

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to create one more new asset to draw income to leverage.

like stocks?

Quote:

The problem is the incomes themselves have been all borrowed up.

you're saying, Fed's pumping money into finance/industry sector inflates stock market in last ditch effort to coax out of us boomers money we don't have?

If TPTB think throwing wheelbarrows of money into economy is good for us, i would point out to them last spring i lost three peach trees and an apple tree from fertilizer burn.
But the ragweeds thrived.

a.

When is it going to be the it?