http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
The insultingly delusional fake Kabuki theater of bank chiefs being “held to task” by lawmakers which is in full swing on both Anglo sides of the Atlantic is nothing but one more additional proof of how dead and gone our political and economic systems are.
These guys shouldn’t be in Congress, they should be either in prison or at home, but certainly not in charge of the companies they helped collect trillions of dollars in losses. Come to think of it, the banks themselves should be closed and cleaned out. By the same token, the US government should liquidate all assets in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and divide all mortgages among the communities where the real estate is situated that the loans are written on. If done right, this would keep most homeowners in their homes, though preferably as tenants of their communities, while the latter would be provided with a desperately needed source of income. Additionally, it would free American taxpayers from the trillions of dollars in inevitable future losses on the paper.
Then, as Nassim Taleb suggested as well, credit default swaps should be banned altogether, like most other forms of securitization. For all the claims about how the loss of these instruments would cripple world trade and individual economies, in truth they are no more beneficial for an economy than are banks that have been allowed to proliferate like so many malignant tumors. Both exist for the benefit of of traders, investors and stock- and bond holders. They deliver no benefit to the population at large.
None of the above will ever happen, or at least not until it’s way too late. For one thing, because it would dissolve 95% of existing financial institutions, which are typically largely owned by the richest and most powerful people in the US and abroad. For another, because the majority of the population is incapable of letting go of the tragic hope and belief that things will be fine.
As for world trade, another popular theme in politics and finance, where it is touted as the planet’s saving grace, we are about to start seeing and feeling how damaging it has been to our lives and societies. I have often repeated that while it’s fine to rely on far away places for your junk and trinkets, basic needs should always be held as close to our chests and homes as humanly possible. We have not done that, and we are beginning to come face to face with the consequences.
When you see a headline that shouts “US trade deficit lowest since 2003”, you’d almost think that is positive. But the reality is that it means that Americans can no longer afford all the goods that used to be imported. Nor, increasingly, can the rest of the world afford US exports, which fell 6% in December. Without plunging energy prices, the deficit might still have remained at a similar level, but, bitingly, with lower absolute trade amounts.
Lower US import levels are a major factor in Canada’s first trade deficit in 32 years. They play a large role in China’s 17.5% fall in exports, as well as Taiwan’s 44.1% abysmal plunge, and Japan’s 9.6% GDP drop. But still, this is not a US problem, though it is an important player. In economies more removed from North America, industrial output fell 27% in Ukraine and 10% in Russia in December. Latvia’s GDP contracted at a 29% annual rate in the fourth quarter.
What is happening is a shatteringly rapid demise of world trade as a whole. US air cargo fell 17% in 2008, while trucking is down 14%. The Baltic Dry shipping index has notoriously dropped well over 90% lately. And while it gained some ground in January, leading maritime news portal (since around 1700) Lloyd’s List predicts the recovery will not last:
News that the Baltic Dry Index enjoyed its biggest rise in 24 years with a hefty 14% rise on Thursday has brought much cheer to beleaguered dry bulk shipping stocks. However the upturn needs to be kept in context. This pushed the BDI to just under 1,500 points, a level which if forecast a year ago would have been low enough to turn the average shipowner white. In effect what has been seen over the last week is a very welcome bounce in freight rates driven largely by a pick-up in Chinese iron ore imports that crumbled dramatically in the last quarter of 2008.
Chinese steel traders and mills are now restocking, which has boosted shipping demand. Looking though at the longer term demand trend, major Chinese steel mills are still cutting production 20% to 30% and the figures for the industry in Europe and Japan are even greater. Such figures do not point to a sustained recovery rather a short term spike in demand, with shipping volumes trailing off again once stockpiles are replenished.
The conclusion we should draw from this is that many of the goods that are today still on our store shelves, will soon no longer reach us. We therefore need to figure out how to get the articles we want, starting of course with the basic necessities, control over which we should never have given up.
But that is not what we’re doing, is it? We just hope for things to get better, and prepare for a year or two at most of doing with a little less, while our governments turn our economies around and the party can start anew. We simply refuse to ask ourselves what happens if the turnaround never comes, just as we refuse to act as if that were even possible. So we sit around and wait while our money is wasted on doomed rescue attempts for long since lost institutions that have hurt us all our lives to begin with, and we can’t get ourselves to rise up and do what must be done to minimize the suffering of our children and friends and mitigate the disasters looming on the horizons of our lives.
