JustThinking.us

From Credit Loan here's another pretty good infograph.

As always, click on the graphic for a short article that will offer some details the generalities of which you probably already have down.

I love the part about Argentina having reduced their national debt over the past decade.

Defaul and subsequently becoming an international credit pariah will do that for you.

From MoneyGame Chart of the Day, this is pretty self explanetory.

What's tougher to understand is how is it that despite incredible growth in stimulus ..... nuthin'.

As always, click the chart for the entire short piece.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced last week the creation of some two million "seasonally adjusted" jobs and a reduction in the rate of unemployment to 8.3%

The press release was breathlessly reported by all the major media outlets across the nation if not the world, none of whom bothered to pull out their calculators and check the number.

The problem with 8.3% aside from the "seasonal adjustments" the formulas for which have never (to my knowledge) been explained anywhere, is the fact that millions and millions ... and millions and millions of Americans of employment age have and continue to be dropped from the count.

For a discussion of how these particular numbers get massaged by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, click on the first chart below for John Williams' outstanding primer at Shadow Government Statistics.

Take note of Mr. Williams calculated rate of about 23% and consider that unemployment during the great depression hit it's high of about 25% in 1933, which number I believe was calculated using Mr. Williams preferred method (the blue line).

The following chart is a simple history of the Fed Funds Rate since 2007.

The second chart is all over the place in multiple formats usually with a notation to note the decline since 1914 when the Fed came into existence with the expressed charge of preserving the purchasing power of the dollar.

The third chart demonstrates the comparable success of the Bank of England in it's pursuit of the exact same charge.

Remember when we were gonna fix that too big to fail thing?

Finally as stated, the total credit market debt owed from 2001 through 2010.

Have a pleasant evening.

In most of our groups it swings the other way.

Continue?

 

In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? 

Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? 

Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts?  

Do we save it without the support of bank regulators?  

Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?  

Without taxes, there would be no liberty. 

Without taxes there would be no property. 

Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending.  

[It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public… 

There is no liberty without dependency. 

I just love the part about, "Could we have inherited it without the assistance of the probate courts?"

Here ya go Son, it's all yours.

He does.

Here's a nicely done graphic from Bloomberg and US Global Funds of the yearly return over the past ten years for many of the most commonly traded commodities.

Click on the table for an enlarged version that you can actually read.

Click the gears above pointing at US Funds for Frank Holmes short, clear and simple piece with some more simple and clear charting from US Gobal Research who would like for you to open an account.

And should you choose to read Mr. Holmes article, do so with the wisdom of Casey Stengel firmly placed in the front of your mind.

Too bad he goes to babbling a bit about privacy issues at the end of this speech, because John Dingell hits it out of the park ... with men on ... and then some ... during the 1999 debate on the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act.  

Which legislation repealed those portions of the Glass Steagall act that seperated institutions that take customer's deposits from investment banks and insurance companies.

Too big to fail said Mr. Dingell in 1999.

Click on the above cartoon to link up to Khalil Bendib who I think is the above artist as I can't read the name ... at Otherworld.org

In case your wondering what Glass Steagall is in the first place, this vid provides a simple and sufficient answer to that question.

In a nutshell Glass Steagall is the shorthand name for legislation passed in 1933 that was specifically designed to help prevent another stock market crash ala 1929 and subsequent depression ala "The Great Depression".

It worked like a charm too ...... right up until the moment it was repealed.  

The following is a brief history lesson from Bill Moyers, followed by an interview with John Reed, former chairman and CEO of then Citicorp who along with Sandy Weil engineered the Citicorp merger with Travelers Group that screwed up everything.

Democrats are gonna hate this story as it totally blows up the notion that the powers that be within the Democrat party care one whit more about you than do those reprehensible fascists of the right.

It takes 36 minutes and is worthy of every second.

If you take the time to watch this, you'll at least have an understanding of what hit you.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration.

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.

Lettuce is like conversation; it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.

No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.

No one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.  

One of the best things in the world to be is a boy; it requires no experience, but needs some practice to be a good one.

The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different.

People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.

Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.

Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being.

Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the Ten Commandments.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.

The thing generally raised on city land is taxes.

There is nothing that disgusts a man like getting beaten at chess by a woman.

There isn't a wife in the world who has not taken the exact measure of her husband, weighed him and settled him in her own mind, and knows him as well as if she had ordered him after designs and specifications of her own.

There was never a nation great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.

We are half ruined by conformity, but we should be wholly ruined without it.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

I had promised somebody an update post on my colt when I got him back from the convalescent home and then didn't do it.

Apologies. 

If you remember we made not one but two breakneck trips across the state of Michigan to the MSU large animal hospital this fall, the first for emergency colic surgury, the second mostly because the colt must have figured I didn't spend enough money on him the first time.

I picked him up and brought him home two weeks ago.

Went back to work on him the next day.

Mostly because I am way too old to be getting my ass bucked off a horse, Scotty got on him for the first time a week ago Friday.

I got on him Saturday and put his eighth ride on him this morning.

I had him saddled in September before he got sick and had hoped to be on him by Halloween, so my colt was way ahead of the filly in this Richard Winter video.

Still it's very good stuff and will probably surprise those people who think horses are getting broke ..... literally.

I left out the first video in this series as it was beyond introductory, videos 3, 4 and 5 are very good as Richard Winter gets this very mature, experienced and easy going two year old filly saddled and mounted in the course of an hour or so clinic.

It's always way easier and a lot safer after some hours of handling and ground work.

Here's a promotional video for the Dennis Reis Colt Breaking Challenge. 

The colts in this vid are far more physically mature and far less experienced and mentally mature than the filly in the previous video.

These are some real good hands with a horse getting run over mostly because when these colts were babies they didn't get handled almost dailly like mine are.

These are most likely ranch raised colts that have been probably, mostly herded to and from after having been halter broke on a burro.

When I was young, I was still to old to be getting run over by somebody's knucklehead colt.

Still, nobody gets hurt here and everyone ends up going home safe, happy and ready to go on.