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The Biggest Lie of the 20th Century
Gross domestic product is supposed to be a measure of all the goods and services produced here at home.
But there's a discrepancy.
You see, private-sector output is measured by the price people are prepared to pay for it. But government output is fudged: It's measured by its cost.
That means GDP increases any time the government spends money. It doesn't matter if that money is actually put to productive use or not - GDP rises nonetheless.
The bureaucrat devising regulations that damage business? His salary increases GDP. The $300 million Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" of a few years back? That was $300 million added to GDP. The jet-fighter project that costs billions, and is plagued by huge overruns that lead to its cancellation? Those billions add to GDP.
Even public-spending "stimulus" programs, however foolish, are always effective according to the GDP definition, because their cost is simply added to output.
It's obvious why big-government Keynesians would like this calculation: It substantiates their claim that government spending stimulates economic growth.
The European Financial Stability Facility ‘allocated’ €750 billion for future funding crises. This money, however, does not exist and will not appear out of thin air. The facility raises funds on an ‘as needed basis’ by selling bonds to large investors (e.g. foreign governments, pension plans, etc.). The funds are then pooled to provide bail-outs to members in trouble – a one-for-all and all-for-one approach. The bulk of the facility is ‘covered’ a €440 billion guarantee made by EU member states.
The value of these guarantees depends on the strength of the state providing the guarantee. When member states have to contribute to a bailout, they collectively tap into their own fiscal reserves and/or borrowing capacity via the facility. If the guarantor country has insufficient reserves they must issue bonds. Alternatively, funding nations can take (steal?) from long-term assets. For example, to fund part of its own bailout Ireland plundered the pension assets of its children and grandchildren, under the assumption that future growth will cover the re-payment. This is a giant logical leap for a country experiencing a devastating real estate collapse and massive unemployment. Asset-liability matching be damned…Ireland is swinging for the fences.
Frankly, Germany (and maybe France) is the only country holding the EU economy together so the EU guarantee (which encompasses many countries with economies far weaker than Germany’s) is tantamount to taking from the poor to give to the poor – most other EU members are themselves sub-prime borrowers of the sovereign kind.
Philippa Malmgren
. . .
She is now reporting, according to the Sweden's largest business paper, Dagens Industri, that she expects the Germans will announce they will return to the Deutschmark and that they have already ordered the new currency printed up.
. . .
News to expect in the coming days and weeks...
•The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up.
She was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy on the National Economic Council (President Bush). She was also a member of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, aka, the Plunge Protection Team. Her client list includes every elite corporate firm in the world
the European EFSF, the so-called rescue facility for the Eurozone, which is currently conceived to use leverage (to solve a debt problem!) and is thought to look something like this
NOTE: (still a $$ only 'full' report)~ however i think this bloger/reporter has the proper viewpoint(s)
As far as I can tell, the complexity serves one main purpose, and that is to baffle enough of the populace for long enough to allow a significant transfer of public wealth to occur in broad daylight into private pockets. In this regard, Europe and the United States seem to be identical
Summary: Part I
The world that Europe, the US and Japan are desperately trying to sustain is no longer possible in a world of too much debt and too expensive energy. The plethora of sliding data noted above represents classic warning signs taht one would expect to see from a global economy in systemic decline.
We are now down to the wire. Over the next few months and years, our story of credit growth - four decades in the making - will continue to unwind. Those who place their faith in the authorities to first, understand the true nature of the predicament, and second, implement restorative policies, are at tremendous risk of personal and/or financial losses.
In Part II of this report: Understanding What Happens Next, we discuss important decoupling trends, what steps global leaders will be forced to take later this year to deal with them, why these steps won't work, and what prudent individuals should be doing now to protect themselves and their wealth.
Click here to access Part II of this report...
Originally posted by Jordan River
I would like to get an update from someone here. What is going on with the rise in american markets? Is it just a bubble? I am not that savey on the market. I only judge the world through the Dow. How is everything going?edit on 29-9-2011 by Jordan River because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by Jordan River
If you go back a page back you will find that this is all linked to the bailouts been approved by Germany to keep the EU afloat.
Is plenty of information in the last few pages that will teach you what you need to know.
I will warn you that if you depend on the markets to judge the well being of the economy the information you will learn will change your views of every about the corruption in the US markets in the EU markets and the governments involved.
The Fed's $16 Trillion Bailouts Under-reported,
The media’s inscrutable brush-off of the Government Accounting Office’s recently released audit of the Federal Reserve has raised many questions about the Fed’s goings-on since the financial crisis began in 2008.
The audit of the Fed’s emergency lending programs was scarcely reported by mainstream media – albeit the results are undoubtedly newsworthy. It is the first audit of the Fed in United States history since its beginnings in 1913. The findings verify that over $16 trillion was allocated to corporations and banks internationally, purportedly for “financial assistance” during and after the 2008 fiscal crisis.