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47 Signs That China Is Absolutely Destroying America On The Global Economic Stage

From The Economic Collapse

Have you ever watched a football game or a basketball game where one team dominates the other team so badly that calling it a “blowout” would be a huge understatement?  Well, that is what China is doing to the United States.  China is absolutely destroying America on the global economic stage.  Once upon a time, the Chinese economy was a joke and the U.S. economy was the most powerful the world had ever seen.  But over the past couple of decades the U.S. economy has decayed and declined while the Chinese economy has skyrocketed.  Today, China makes more steel, more automobiles, more beer, more cotton, more coal and more solar panels than we do.  China has the fastest train in the world, the fastest computer in the world and they export twice as much high-tech equipment as we do.  In 2011, our trade deficit with China was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world, and China has now accumulated more than 3 trillion dollars in foreign currency reserves.  Every single day, we lose more jobs, more businesses and more of our national wealth to China.  In technical economic terms, China has “taken us out behind the woodshed” and has beaten the living daylights out of us.  Unfortunately, most Americans are so addicted to entertainment that they don’t even…

CNBC’s Best Alternative Financial Websites; Strategist News’ Best Business Blogs 2011; Business Blogs vs. Financial Blogs

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Best Business Blogs 2011

Strategist News presents the Best Business Blogs 2011

This is our third year publishing this ranking. The business blogs field is getting more competitive than ever! Seth Godin continues to dominate the business blogosphere, while Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble still rule.

This year we made a major change to our methodology. From this year on, we will only include standalone blogs of individuals. We have excluded all companies, newspapers, brands and groups. Why did we do this? Because we want to celebrate the individual writers. Not corporations. We do not want to be influenced by business models or advertising to skew the results. We just want to rank the best writing, period. So here they are…

Business Blogs vs. Financial Blogs

I came in 14th on the “business blog” list, but have to admit that I never heard of most of the sites selected by Strategist News.

Then again,  the concept of “business blogs” encompasses a broad range of categories including  marketing, careers, work finance, technology, small business, entrepreneurship, personal finance, microfinance, project management, and numerous other categories.

The categories are so broad, I am pleased to be on the list at all. Calculated Risk and Barry Ritholtz (Big Picture) were also on the list, in well-deserved positions of 5 and 8 respectively.

For those not familiar with the columns “Alexa Rank” and “Google Page Rank” in the above link, the…

Making Money On Poverty: JP Morgan Makes Bigger Profits When The Number Of Americans On Food Stamps Goes Up

From The Economic Collapse

How would you feel if someone told you that one of the largest banks on Wall Street makes more money whenever the number of Americans on food stamps goes up?  Unfortunately, this is something that is actually true.  In the United States today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps.  In fact, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased by a whopping 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House.  All of this makes JP Morgan very happy, because JP Morgan has been making money by the boatload on food stamps.  Right now, JP Morgan Chase issues food stamp debit cards in 26 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.  The division of JP Morgan Chase that issues these debit cards made an eye-popping 5.47 billion dollars in net revenue during 2010.  JP Morgan is paid per customer, so when the number of Americans on food stamps goes up, they make more money.  But doesn’t this give JP Morgan an incentive to try to keep the number of Americans on food stamps as high as possible?  Of course it does.  JP Morgan is interested in making money as rapidly as possible. If JP Morgan can get more Americans enrolled in the food stamp program and keep them enrolled in it for as long as possible, that is good for business.

And the…

Brussels Hit by First Coordinated Strike in Nearly Two Decades; Spain to Miss Deficit Reduction Goals; France Halved 2012 Growth Forecast to 0.5 Percent; Ten Things to Expect in Europe

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

The Financial Times reports Brussels hit by strike as EU leaders meet.

A general strike brought widespread disruption to Belgium on Monday, as European Union leaders arrived for a summit in Brussels with a focus on boosting employment across the region. Trains, shipping, air travel and public transport were all hit by the trade union action, called in response to reforms enacted hastily by the new government of Elio Di Rupo.

It is the first time in nearly two decades that unions from all sectors of the economy have co-ordinated a strike. As well as schools, the postal service and other branches of the public sector, some private enterprises were affected as unions flexed their muscles.

The strikes in the EU’s capital are a reflection of union discontent across the continent, worried that austerity measures will jeopardise the recovery. A Europe-wide “day of action”, bringing together unions from across the continent, is planned for February 29.

Voter distress and open dissent is no where close to peaking.

Spain to Miss Deficit Reduction Goals

Courtesy of Google Translate, please consider Spain deficit to Hit 6.8% in 2012 and 6.3% in 2013, according to IMF

6.8% is far from the 4.4% that the European Commission has imposed
IMF predicts two years of recession, with declines of 1.7 and 0.3% in 2012 and 2013

Spain will not meet deficit reduction goals of the European Commission in 2012 and 2013. Specifically,

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The Market Ticker – To The EU: Baling Wire And Duct Tape Is Not Enough

From The Market Ticker

Things that make you chuckle in the morning…

European Union leaders gather for their first summit of 2012 as a deteriorating economy and struggle to complete a Greek debt writeoff risk sidetracking efforts to stamp out the financial crisis.

EU chiefs arrive in Brussels about 2 p.m. today to put the finishing touches on a German-led deficit-control treaty and endorse the statutes of a 500 billion-euro ($ 661 billion) rescue fund to be set up this year. Greece and its private creditors said Jan. 28 they expect to complete a deal in coming days after bondholders signaled they would accept European government demands for a bigger cut in their debt holdings.

Uh huh.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is that Germany is screaming that Greece must surrender its national sovereignty in order to continue to receive “help”, effectively becoming a vassal state of Germany. 

In the meantime Sarkozy says he’s going to unilaterally impose a financial transactions tax.  One wonders how he’s going to pull that off, given that I don’t think France re-installed a King.  Or did they?

Here in the US we still won’t face reality — although it’s at least being talked about in the media now.

The level of debt held now by governments, the financial industry and especially consumers remains a greater drag on the U.S. than in 1983, Reinhart said Jan. 27 in a radio interview from Davos

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Outrageous! The Government Is Giving Out Free Cell Phones And Free Cell Phone Minutes To Welfare Recipients

From The Economic Collapse

Did you know that the federal government is giving out free cell phones and free cell phone minutes to welfare recipients?  It may be hard to believe, but it is true.  Right now, there are companies that are running advertisements specifically targeted at low income Americans informing them of the fact that all they have to do is sign up and they can get a free cell phone and hundreds of free cell phone minutes every single month and it will all be paid for by the federal government.  Some have referred to this as “The Obama Phone”, but that is not exactly accurate.  The outrageous federal programs that are paying for this were initiated before Barack Obama entered the White House.  But the fact that welfare recipients have been receiving free cell phones and free cell phone minutes under both the Bush and Obama administrations has been confirmed as being true by Snopes.  All of this is paid for by “the federal Universal Service Fund”.  That is one of those annoying little taxes that you may have noticed on your phone bill.  So what is essentially happening is the federal government is taking money from all of us so that they can provide free cell phone service for welfare recipients every single month.

When some of my readers informed me of this free cell phone scheme, I…

Hollande Vows to Tax the Rich, Take Pay Cut; Sarkozy Promises German-Style Reforms; Merkel Cannot Save Sarkozy, But She Can Hurt Herself Trying

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Politics are heating up in France and Germany as French president Nicolas Sarkozy clings to his political life and German chancellor Angela Merkel is under increasing pressure over more bailouts.

The Financial Times reports Merkel to join Sarkozy on campaign trail

German chancellor Angela Merkel promised to join Nicolas Sarkozy on the campaign trail as the French president took to the airwaves on Sunday to launch a set of German-style structural reforms aimed at seizing the initiative in his uphill re-election attempt.

Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrat party said she would “actively support Nicolas Sarkozy with joint appearances in the election campaign in the spring”. The announcement caused surprise in Paris as Mr Sarkozy, also of the centre-right, has yet officially to declare his candidacy for the election, which will take place over two rounds on April 22 and May 6.

The pledge by the German leader underscored the close ties she and Mr Sarkozy – together now habitually dubbed “Merkozy” – have built during the eurozone crisis, despite clear tensions between them at times. Ms Merkel pointedly avoided overt backing for David Cameron, the British Conservative party leader, in the 2010 UK general election.

Her intervention represented a clear rebuke to Mr Hollande. He has promised to renegotiate the new “fiscal compact” for the eurozone forged by Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy, due to be signed at a European Union summit in Brussels on Monday. He criticised it in his manifesto

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16 Statistics Which Show That The Number Of Americans Dependent On The Government Is At An All-Time High

From The Economic Collapse

A higher percentage of the American population is receiving government benefits than ever before.  Yes, there have always been poor people that have needed our assistance, but what does it say about our economy that the number of Americans dependent on the government is at an all-time high?  Every night on the evening news we are told that the economy is improving, and Barack Obama is endlessly giving speeches about the “economic recovery” that is supposedly underway.  But that is not the reality on the ground for those on the bottom rungs of the income ladder in America.  People are really hurting out there, and the number of Americans that are turning to the government for financial assistance just continues to increase.  Yes, we should always have a “safety net”, but right now our “safety net” is becoming massively overloaded as millions more Americans jump on to it every single year.  What all of these impoverished Americans really need are jobs, but the U.S. Congress and the past several administrations have been systematically killing job growth in America.  So unfortunately the number of poor Americans is going to continue to rise, and that is really bad news for a nation that is already drowning in debt.

Some people out there want to blame the poor for the statistics that you are about to read, but that is…

Steen Jakobsen on Maximum Intervention “Now is the Time You Need Metals – Particularly Gold and Gold Stocks”; Fool in the Shower

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Steen Jakobsen, chief economist for Saxo Bank in Denmark has some interesting thoughts to share on gold an metals in an email update that just came in.

Steen writes …

Interesting session with Fed yesterday! Both the ECB and the FED have now clearly showed that the changed board of directors is far more willing to print money and keep rates low forever than ever before in central banking history – which is probably not a good thing or is it?

It’s a wait and see game now – the FOMC action left plenty on the table for both the bulls and the bears. For the bulls this is ‘easy money’ for longer and low rates will have to work.

For the bears it’s sign of incoming depression when Fed feels obliged to signal low rates for longer.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. There is reason for low rates, but also printing money to the extend the major central bank does it makes all of us speculators chasing, again, investments which we would not normally engage in as commodities, metals, housing et al. We are effectively all being forced to take more risk for same return with low interest now predicted into the financial “forever”.

Sometimes the best analysis on an issue, and in my case almost always, comes from someone else – with reference to the FOMC I personally really enjoyed Caroline Baum’s piece:

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The Market Ticker – David Malpass States Half The Obvious

From The Market Ticker

Oh Not Again!

On Wednesday the Federal Reserve shared its thoughts on the course of interest rates—but not on the implications for the value of the dollar. The two can’t be disconnected. The Fed’s rationale on interest rates determines the stability of the dollar, which is the economic bedrock for price stability, capital inflows, growth and jobs.

Obfuscation on the dollar works fine for Wall Street, which reaps billions in profits from the Fed’s unstable dollar policy. It trades currencies and volatility, and makes a bundle protecting investors from the Fed by selling complex derivatives, interest-rate swaps, even triple-leveraged gold and currency funds pitched on television.

But stable means stable.  It does not mean 2% inflation, as Bernanke asserts.  And stable is actually written into The Fed mandate — that is, the law allegedly governing Bernanke’s operations.

He just ignores it.

By the way, this is not an academic exercise.  2% inflation is a cumulative 144% over a working man’s 45 years of economic earning.  This effectively forces said man to stick his money into various schemes and scams lest it be eroded.  While the erosion over 10 years is not all that large (~22% over ten years) over his entire working life it’s outrageous.

When the currency weakens, the prices of staples rise faster than wages, hurting all but the rich who buy protection.

And when the protection doesn’t work everyone loses.

Incidentally the hedges can’t work…