My Aunt Fanny!
Sharon August 10th, 2009
The chorus of “all better now” is getting louder. Paul Krugman has joined the team, noting that even if you have moral objections to the bailout, it must have worked. Sure.
In order to believe this you must also believe several things:
1. There are no more shocks coming, since, after all, we’re still pretty shaky. This requires that you pay no attention whatsoever to things like the state of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 2. That a short term recovery now is a recovery indeed. This requires you pay no attention to things depressing consumer spending, like still rising unemployment and increasing debt. 3. That you believe that the government stimulus is not just buying us a cheap jump, but actually stimulating a sustained and sustainable level of economic growth - that is, that we’re going to keep buying cars after cash for clunkers runs out of money, or that we’re going to keep buying houses after we stop paying people to do so. 4. That none of the pipers are going to have to be paid soon. And finally it requires you believe that all the news is realy as good as it seems. I don’t, and I honestly don’t see how it is possible.
Here’s just one point, on the recent job numbers that have everyone cheering:
http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/08/08/beware-the-jobs-number/
Recovery?! My Aunt Fanny!
Sharon
- economy
- Comments(24)
Pure BS. Sad. Don’t waste your time on them, Sharon… a pack of liars. Have you seen that nice chart circulating around the web showing that at every point of the Great Depression, the pundits were exclaiming it was getting better… while the graph line kept plunging… same thing.
The pundits saying the worst is over just don’t get it and won’t believe the true gravity of the situation until we start moving lower again.
Having said that, I’d be amazed if this bounce lasts a year.
I’m looking at things like NDX and the Dow and I wouldn’t be surprised if we have the start of a rollover right here that turns into a substantial stock market drop right into the fall. Now, of course we all know that the stock market isn’t really the real world, but just wait until the Dow heads back to the 6000s. The world will start crying again. It’s kind of sad that a bunch of stock market index numbers rule people’s thinking about social wellness the way these numbers do but there it is.
Then again, Kunstler said just that in his latest blog entry — that we’re ruled by numbers that are really leading us astray.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/08/the-fog-of-numbers.html
Fog of numbers indeed.
To paraphrase Greer:
Never expect a hallucination to obey the laws of gravity.
—
We know what is real: food, land, water, pain.
The rest of it will come in line someday…but until then, it’s anybody’s guess how the dream world will play it’s little games.
MY AUNT FANNY
chorus:
My Aunt Fanny!
My my my my my my my!
My Aunt Fanny!
Why why why why why why why?
Why do you say the things you do?
Can you not see in front of you?
Why is the light not shining through?
Maybe your glasses are painted blue?
My my my my my my my!
What a family! What a clan!
All my uncles have a plan.
Ben and Timmy and Barney,too
Say the rough road will be paved like new.
But no one puts it better
than
My Aunt Fanny!
She’s a whiz in math. It’s just uncanny!
Fuzzy math, it never looked so murky!
My Aunt Fanny can add like a turkey!
repeat chorus
permission granted to make up your
own verses.
Is it a bad sign that I am about to give up the eternal fight to be the lone person crying that the emperor has no clothes? I am so tired of all this “recoveery c-r-a-p” and everyone around me operating in complete oblivion. It is ridiculous!
The other day I was talking to an extremely bright, open minded scientist in my office and she was going on and on about how every major economist has said we are recovering. You could see the desparation in her eyes and hear it in her voice. She NEEDED to believe this load of baloney, even though you could tell she was not completely convinced.
I just don’t get it. Why would a person choose to ignore the signs rather than do something to prepare for what lies ahead?
Is it better to just say nothing, or to try to beat everyone into submission (at the risk of being totally outcast, I might add)?
Is it a bad sign that I am about to give up the eternal fight to be the lone person crying that the emperor has no clothes? I am so tired of all this “recoveery c-r-a-p” and everyone around me operating in complete oblivion. It is ridiculous!
The other day I was talking to an extremely bright, open minded scientist in my office and she was going on and on about how every major economist has said we are recovering. You could see the desparation in her eyes and hear it in her voice. She NEEDED to believe this load of baloney, even though you could tell she was not completely convinced.
I just don’t get it. Why would a person choose to ignore the signs rather than do something to prepare for what lies ahead?
Is it better to just say nothing, or to try to beat everyone into submission (at the risk of being totally outcast, I might add)?
This talk of recovery is just one more feeble attempt by the government to control the information so that the American public won’t panic (which we probably would if we knew the real truth). Reminds me of that often-quoted line from the movies “You can’t handle the truth!!!”
It’s a known fact that Washington only gives us bits and pieces of the story at one time - they still remember the “War of the Worlds” radio fiasco. You can bet that if the government says there’s a slight chance that the swine flu season might be a little more intense than it was in the autumn of 2008, there’s actually a BIG concern for 2009-10’s flu season.
The sad thing is that there probably are a large number of citizens who would panic if they knew the truth — and they are the ones who have either not been reading Sharon’s blog or have chosen to wear blinders about Peak Oil and Climate Change.
Thank g-d that we can still find those on the internet who are not afraid to tell the real story.
Cathy (watching with guarded amusement in Michigan)
“We know what is real: food, land, water, pain.”
Hear! Hear!
I’ll have to remember that. But we can throw *joy* in too
Hard to say if it’s worth keeping up the battle to get the word out or not. And at this point it might be better, for some of us anyway, to just make sure we’re getting along with our neighbors and just keep on doing our own thing. If they ask why you’re doing something, just say the critters and garden are because you like fresh food, etc.
These days, I write about the garden or things I’m doing around home in general for seasonal readiness but don’t bother that much with news articles or whatever. I’ve written about emergency preparedness and insulating, and all of that and at this point either my friends and acquaintances are for doing it or they aren’t. I am still going to try to arrange to use the community hall this fall for a mending workshop because I know there’s an interest in our town and amongst some of the farmers in this sort of thing, and it’s in line with community work and sustainability and all that. But quite frankly, I for one have too much to do without adding writing into the mix. I’m not a professional writer after all… although I may still point people in Sharon’s direction from time to time (actively, as opposed to the permanent link in my journal’s sidebar).
Things are going to get potentially very interesting in the coming months…
I do hope the pundits are right and we are seeing some positive signs - unemployment claims are down, number of hours worked are up, even hourly wages made a teeny tiny increase - the pain of unemployment is so great for so many families - I do hope this is a recovery - and even if it is temporary - a bit of respite won’t hurt.
While I believe ultimately that there will be a severe restructuring of the economy - I do not wish it on anyone just to prove I was right - and frankly - I wish we could avoid it or at least make it less painful. Cause behind those innocuous words “economic collapse” lie many people who will die, many who will suffer.
Perhaps - if things calm down - in a calmer environment - we can start to make the sorts of changes that will allow us to transition in a way which is less hurtful to people. I am not optimistic that will happen - but one can hope.
They’re just trying to keep the balls in the air as long as possible, to extract the most of our money as possible…. then it’s off to the Canaries, Maldives, Paraguay, whatever, while the empty shell falls inward upon itself.
Don’t believe them, and don’t be caught underneath.
-K
My son Isaiah has been listening to his brother read Harry Potter to him, and after the bit about Harry going into Gringotts to get his gold, was trying to figure out (he’s 5) why gold was important. We talked about it a little bit, about the idea of something representing something else of value. He said to me (and I swear, I did not prompt this!), “But there are things that are much better than gold, like life, books and vegetables.” That’s my new motto.
Sharon
I happen to be reading Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan at the moment. He pretty convincingly argues that on average, economists are no better at predicting ‘the future’ than cab drivers. I’ve been increasingly feeling like reading articles/blogs/op-eds by economists is a waste of my time and I think I’m just going to go cold-turkey and stop it all together. Well, I’ll probably keep reading John Michael Greer, but then while he expounds regularly on matters economic, I don’t believe he calls himself an ‘economist.’
Sharon, what’s happening with Fannie and Freddie? Do you have any articles that illustrate their troubles?
And I’m going to put that quote from your son Isaiah right next to a famous one by Bilbo Baggins:
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
My mistake: that quote wasn’t from Bilbo. It was from Thorin Oakenshield, who uttered it on his deathbed-dying from wounds inflicted in his attempt to defend hoarded gold.
I have to say I loved the latest unemployment numbers. It is so absurd to believe that 257,000 jobs were lost yet unemployment goes from 9.5 to 9.4 percent. Liars figure but figures don’t lie. People are scared but the government has to continue the lie because if they didn’t as Junge once said “people can only stand so much reality”.
Don,
You should check out Ilargi and Stoneleigh’s blog- The Automatic Earth. http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
It is, bar none, the finest economic news digest for people looking beneath the smoke and mirrors of the mainstream media. You will fine answers about Freddie and Fannie there.
Beware however- you will be biting of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and it has its consequences.
Kathy
It would seem that Barak Obama was put in power for the precise reason of putting a happy face on the situation.
The question is, does he really believe that business as usual is just around the corner or does he know he is being used to keep the public sedated and out of panic mode until the big players can get out before the Big Collapse.
How long before it Collapses? I do not know.
The crisis is not over with the second wave of bad loans is starting to hit (option arms) which will be just as big as the other wave added on top of the normal run of the mill ” I lost my job” type of defaults. Close to 3 banks a week are failing this year and this is the lull between the two mortgage crisises, its going to get a lot uglier before this is over.
While you can’t eat gold, you can also not trust the institutions that create paper money out of thin air. Food, and shelter will always be the most important survival items you can have but ceasar will continue to demand taxes and other fees so having a means of keeping your capital safe is not a bad thing .
It is important to remember that a paper bill is a promise to redeem that the government may default on at any time by debasing the currency. gold has never had zero value. I suspect the reason harry and other wizards use gold is the ability of any wizard or government to easily conterfeit a scrape of paper. While we don’t have magic the ability to print or create endless amounts of digital money is a threat to every scrap of savings you currently have.
A physicist, a mechanical engineer and an economist were stranded on a desert island together when a huge can of tuna washed ashore. THe physicist suggested they build a large fire with a carefully directed flame to melt a hole in the bottom of the can. The engineer disagreed, saying it would be eaier to contruct a catapult which could throw a sharp rock into the side of the can. The economist gave them both a superior smile, said, “Assume a can opener” and proceeded with a theory of his own…
Those happy assumptions are great in academia or government cloud-cuckoo-land, where your ideas have no personal consequences. In the real world, better make sure your garden is dependable, your family is close and your skills are transferable. And try a youtube search for “Gerald Celente.” He’ll wake you up.
Arnaud de Borchgrave and two anonymous billionaires agree with Sharon:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/10/doomsday-pros-and-cons/print/
Regarding swine flu
I’ve been reading a lot about Vitamin D and am now taking 2,000 IU a day. There’s an article documenting how this dose kept certain prisoners in a population healthy during an epidemic in a prison. Easily found on google. I may have to throw up a post on my blog with links. But google Vitamin D and cancer or Vitamin D and flu epidemic, see what you get. It has potent anti-bacterial properties and seems to be important in preventing cancers. People with low vitamin D levels (75% of Americans, recent study shows) are more susceptible to swine flu.
I give my kids 1,000 IU a day, as well, and they have not gotten any colds since I started this.
Don, I think that The Automatic Earth is a great place to start - Ilargi did several pieces about Fannie and Freddie last week, if you skip all the articles (it can be overwhelming at first) and go straight to his commentary. In short, what happened was that a number of articles appeared discussing the possibility of a “bad bank” solution for Fannie and Freddie, which are overloaded with *trillions* of dollars in bad debt, and have been buying bad debt as fast as possible. It seems enormously unlikely that one could unload anything that vast into a bad bank, particularly when China owns a good bit of it
. Ilargi believes (and I believe he’s right) that they may be the next big iceberg we hit.
Sharon
Yikes - I just read the commentary at The Automatic Earth. All that is going on in my head is flashing red lights, sirens, and commands to battle stations. Better head back to the garden, and plan on putting up a few more jars of salsa.
Sharon and KathyD: Thanks for your help!