Home » Posts tagged 'Financial Disaster'

Tag Archives: Financial Disaster

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

10 Years Later–No Lessons Learned

10 YEARS LATER – NO LESSONS LEARNED

“A variety of investors provided capital to financial companies, with which they made irresponsible loans and took excessive risks. These activities resulted in real losses, which have largely wiped out the shareholder equity of the companies. But behind that shareholder equity is bondholder money, and so much of it that neither depositors of the institution nor the public ever need to take a penny of losses. Citigroup, for example, has $2 trillion in assets, but also has $600 billion owed to its own bondholders. From an ethical perspective, the lenders who took the risk to finance the activities of these companies are the ones that should directly bear the cost of the losses.”John Hussman – May 2009

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Wall Street/Fed/Treasury created financial disaster of 2008/2009. What should have happened was an orderly liquidation of the criminal Wall Street banks who committed the greatest control fraud in world history and the disposition of their good assets to non-criminal banks who did not recklessly leverage their assets by 30 to 1, while fraudulently issuing worthless loans to deadbeats and criminals. But we know that did not happen.

You, the taxpayer, bailed the criminal bankers out and have been screwed for the last decade with negative real interest rates and stagnant real wages, while the Wall Street scum have raked in risk free billions in profits provided by their captured puppets at the Federal Reserve. The criminal CEOs and their executive teams of henchmen have rewarded themselves with billions in bonuses while risk averse grandmas “earn” .10% on their money market accounts while acquiring a taste for Fancy Feast savory salmon cat food.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How To Prepare For The 5 Most Common Financial Disasters

How To Prepare For The 5 Most Common Financial Disasters

The worst financial disasters to affect an individual are often not due to the overall global economy and the bringing about of Armageddon.  They are more personal and localized.  We have a few tips to help you avoid financial ruin in the event one of these five most common financial horrors were to strike.

Families often have to deal with the loss of jobs and unexpected medical bills.  But having a plan in place could help you avoid losing even more of your hard-earned money should the unthinkable happen.  Many Americans go about their day with absolutely no care in the world and not even an extra can of peas on the shelf. Many don’t think to prepare for an event, even a localized or more personal one and have often looked down on those of us who have these plans in place.  In fact, only 16% of Americans say they are prepared for a disaster like one of the five we will cover.

*Keep in mind, some of these go hand in hand.  For example, if you have major medical bills because of a car accident, you’ll also have added car expenses.  If you are dealing with the death of a spouse who is employed, you also now must deal with the loss of a job.

Getting out of debt (especially credit card debt) should be the first order of business when planning for any financial crisis.  Paying off debt means that in the event of a financial disaster, you’ve encountered a setback and not a game changer in your life.  Start by no longer using credit cards. Keep one for emergencies if you can be responsible with it, otherwise, cancel them as you pay them off.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Jersey Prepares To Raise Taxes On “Almost Everything” As It Nears Financial Disaster

Last week we noted that in what was a radical U-turn to what other public pension funds have been doing in recent years – most notably Calpers  – the struggling New Jersey public pension system decided that instead of lowering its expected rate of return, it would raise it, from 7% to 7.5%.

The simple reason behind this odd increase in projected returns was an accounting sleight of hand which would allow the state of New Jersey to save some $238 million in pension contributions as a result of the higher discount rate applied to the fund’s liabilities. And with a pension funding level of only 37% for the 2015 fiscal year, the worst of any state in the US, New Jersey would gladly take even the most glaring accounting gimmickry that would delay its inevitable death.

Unfortunately, being the not so proud owner of the most distressed and underfunded public pension fund in the US is just the start of New Jersey’s monetary woes, and as Bloomberg reports, New Jersey’s fiscal situation is so dire that new Governor Phil Murphy has proposed taxing online-room booking, ride-sharing, marijuana, e-cigarettes and Internet transactions along with raising taxes on millionaires and retail sales to fund a record $37.4 billion budget that would boost spending on schools, pensions and mass transit.

The proposal which is 4.2% higher than the current fiscal year’s, relies on a tax for the wealthiest that is so unpopular it not only has yet to be approved, but also lacks support from key Democrats in the legislature, let alone Republicans. It also reverses pledges from Murphy’s predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, to lower taxes in a state where living costs are already among the nation’s highest.

Murphy, a Democrat who replaced term-limited Christie on Jan. 16, said his goal is to give New Jerseyans more value for their tax dollars; instead he plans on bleeding them dry. He has promised additional spending on underfunded schools and transportation in a credit-battered state with an estimated $8.7 billion structural deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Former Reagan Administration Official Warns That Financial Disaster Is Dead Ahead

Former Reagan Administration Official Warns That Financial Disaster Is Dead Ahead

Disaster - Public DomainWhy won’t the American people listen to the warnings?  David Stockman was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1981, and he served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1985.  These days, he is running a website called “Contra Corner” which I highly recommend that you check out.  Stockman believes that a global “debt super-cycle” that has been building for decades is now bursting, and he is convinced that the consequences for the U.S. and for the rest of the planet will be absolutely catastrophic.  His findings are very consistent with what I have been writing about on The Economic Collapse Blog, and if Stockman is correct the times ahead of us are going to be exceedingly painful.

But right now, most people don’t seem to be in the mood to listen to these types of warnings.  Even though there is a mountain of evidence that the global economy has already plunged into recession, U.S. stocks had a great month in October, and so most Americans seem to think that the crisis has passed.

Of course the truth is that the stock market is not an accurate barometer of the economy and it never has been.  Back in 2008, almost everything else started to go downhill before stocks did, and the same thing is happening once again.  In a recent article, Stockman explained that stocks are surging to absolutely ridiculous levels even though corporate earnings are actually way down

At this point, 75% of S&P 500 companies have reported Q3 results, and earnings are coming in at $93.80 per share on an LTM basis. That happens to be 7.4% below the peak $106 per share reported last September, and means that the market today is valuing these shrinking profits at a spritely 22.49X PE ratio.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Glencore The Next Lehman? The World’s Largest Commodities Trading Company Is Toast

Is Glencore The Next Lehman? The World’s Largest Commodities Trading Company Is Toast

Toast - Public DomainAre we about to witness the most important global financial event since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008?  Glencore has been known as the largest commodities trading company on the entire planet, and at one time it was ranked as the 10th biggest company in the world.  It is linked to trillions of dollars of derivatives trades globally, and if the firm were to implode it would be a financial disaster unlike anything that we have seen in Europe since the end of World War II.  Unfortunately, all signs are pointing to an inescapable death spiral for Glencore at this point.  The stock price was down nearly 30 percent on Monday, and overall Glencore stock has plunged nearly 80 percent since May.  There are certainly other candidates for “the next Lehman” (Petrobras and Deutsche Bank being two perfect examples), but Glencore has definitely surged to the front of the pack.  Right now many analysts are openly wondering if the firm will even be able to survive to the end of next month.

If you are not familiar with Glencore, the following is a pretty good summary of the commodity trading giant from Wikipedia

Glencore plc is an Anglo–Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, with its registered office in Saint Helier, Jersey. The company was created through a merger of Glencore with Xstrata on 2 May 2013. As of 2014, it ranked tenth in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest companies. It is the world’s third-largest family business.

As Glencore International, the company was already one of the world’s leading integrated producers and marketers of commodities. It was the largest company in Switzerland and the world’s largest commodities trading company, with a 2010 global market share of 60 percent in the internationally tradeable zinc market, 50 percent in the internationally tradeable copper market, 9 percent in the internationally tradeable grain market and 3 percent in the internationally tradeable oil market.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress