11.06.2010

Carnival Capitialism - "Step right up, there's a winner every time."

Why is the fed so obcessed with artifically supporting the stock market? In my opinion, it's because so many folks were hoodwinked into mutual funds as a tool back in the Reagan years. Back then the 'markets' had largely run outta new dough. The bankers came up with another ploy, this time it was to secure a steady flow of funds into the carnival by offering folks the time honored flim-flam of a free lunch. "Step right up, there's a winner everytime" the carnival barker shouts. while the carny's owners know that, as P.T. Barnum, one of the original actual carny owners said, "There's another sucker born every minute."

The hated bank bailouts and assorted 'stimulus' packages were the western governmnts' attempt to forstall a worldwide stock market meltdown which would have resulted in the value mutual funds plummeting. So, to avoid the voter backlash that would have thrown out incumbents in democracies around the globe [thereby forcing the pigs away from the trough], the 'leaders' chose the largest single transfer of money in world history. They chose to bankrupt everyone's children and grandchildren by borrowing trillions from China and elsewhere and sending the dough to their favorite banks and corporations. The Tea Party Slogan "Stimulus, The Audacity of Dopes" captures accurately the spirit of populist sentiments on the topic.

Now there's millions of little guys who were counting on their mutual funds as their retirement security, instead have seen them drop during the '08 warmup to the big drop that will happen when the debt crisis turns into massive austerity programs and 'consumers' will be forced to stop consuming most everything other than food. That'll be the popping of the last big bubble-the commodity bubble. Look out cause from what i've read the 'smart' money, the carny owners, are selling commodity stocks slowly to mutual fund managers and either hoarding the cash or turning to real assets like gold, or in China's case oil and potash. The big boys know the second [much larger] dip is coming soon to a carnival near you.

Quantitative easing is just devaluationToronto's Globe and Mail
Get ready for yet another round of quantitative easing (i.e. printing more money), one may well ask: Why?