Aankomend vice-president Biden: economie VS kan instorten

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:15 schreef Zero2Nine het volgende:
Komt dit bovenop het noodfonds van ome George? Dan wordt er dus in totaal voor 1,4 biljoen in de economie van de VS gestoken. Ik neem aan dat een groot deel ervan ook leningen zijn aan bedrijven, maar de vraag is dan natuurlijk wanneer het terugkomt.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:29 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Amerika gaat kapot!

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:34 schreef Zero2Nine het volgende:

[..]

En wij gaan mee

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:36 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Europa word economisch wereldleider

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:38 schreef __Saviour__ het volgende:

[..]

Als het de zaken intern goed op orde krijgt, heeft Europa wel duidelijk de potentie om zich los te weken van de VS en een eigen grootmacht te worden. Maar aan de andere kant van de wereld staan ook reusachtige economieën te trappelen om een grote rol op te eisen.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:17 schreef jogy het volgende:
$ 5000 miljard is er op dit moment al in de markt gegoten Dit was de stand in november.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:45 schreef YuckFou het volgende:

[..]

En gezien de omvang van de markten waar dat geld in gepompt word is het allemaal nog steeds een druppel op de gloeiende plaat

quote:

It’s the same story on this side of the Irish Sea, of course. We’re all still plunging hither and thither, guzzling wine and wondering what preposterously expensive electronic toys the children will want to smash on Christmas morning this year. We can’t see the meteorite coming either.

I think mainly this is because the government is not telling us the truth. It’s painting Gordon Brown as a global economic messiah and fiddling about with Vat, pretending that the coming recession will be bad. But that it can deal with it.

I don’t think it can. I have spoken to a couple of pretty senior bankers in the past couple of weeks and their story is rather different. They don’t refer to the looming problems as being like 1992 or even 1929. They talk about a total financial meltdown. They talk about the End of Days.

Already we are seeing household names (MFI, Woolworths etc) disappearing from the high street and with them will go the suppliers whose names have only ever been visible behind the grime on motorway vans. The job losses will mount. And mount. And mount. And as they climb, the bad debt will put even more pressure on the banks until every single one of them stutters and fails.

The European banks took one hell of a battering when things went wrong in America. Imagine, then, how life will be when the crisis arrives on this side of the Atlantic. Small wonder one City figure of my acquaintance ordered three safes for his London house just last week.

Of course, you may imagine the government will simply step in and nationalise everything, but to do that, it will have to borrow. And when every government is doing the same thing, there simply won’t be enough cash in the global pot. You can forget Iceland. From what I gather, Spain has had it. Along with Italy, Ireland and very possibly the UK.

It is impossible for someone who scored a U in his economics A-level to grapple with the consequences of all this but I’m told that in simple terms money will cease to function as a meaningful commodity. The binary dots and dashes that fuel the entire system will flicker and die. And without money there will be no business. No means of selling goods. No means of transporting them. No means of making them in the first place even. That’s why another friend of mine has recently sold his London house and bought somewhere in the country . . . with a kitchen garden.

These, as I see them, are the facts. Planet Earth thought it had £10. But it turns out we had only £2. Which means everyone must lose 80% of their wealth. And that’s going to be a problem if you were living on the breadline beforehand.

Eventually, of course, the system will reboot itself, but for a while there will be absolute chaos: riots, lynchings, starvation. It’ll be a world without power or fuel, and with no fuel there’s no way the modern agricultural system can be maintained. Which means there will be no food either. You might like to stop and think about that for a while.

I have, and as a result I can see the day when I will have to shoot some of my neighbours - maybe even David Cameron - as we fight for the last bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight in the smoking ruin that was Chipping Norton’s post office.

I believe the government knows this is a distinct possibility and that it might happen next year, and there is absolutely nothing it can do to stop Cameron getting both barrels from my Beretta. But instead of telling us straight, it calls the crisis the “credit crunch” to make it sound like a breakfast cereal and asks Alistair Darling to smile and big up Gordon when he’s being interviewed.

I can’t say I blame it, really. If an enormous meteorite was heading our way and the authorities knew it couldn’t be stopped or diverted, why bother telling anyone? Best to let us soldier on in the dark until it all goes dark for real.

On a more cheery note, Vauxhall has stopped making the Vectra, that dreary, designed-in-a-coffee-break Eurobox that no one wanted. In its place stands the new Insignia, which has been voted European car of the year for 2009.

This award is made by motoring journalists across Europe, and, with the best will in the world, the Swedes do not want the same thing from a car as the Greeks. That’s why they almost always get it wrong. Past winners have been the Talbot Horizon and the Renault 9.

They’ve got the Insignia even more wrong than usual because the absolutely last thing anyone wants right now, and I’m including in the list consumption, a severed artery and a massive shark bite, is a four-door saloon car with a bargain-basement badge.

Oh it’s not a bad car. It’s extremely good-looking, it appears to be very well made, it is spacious and the prices are reasonable. But set against that are seats that are far too hard, the visibility - you can’t see the corners of the car from the driver’s chair - and the solid, inescapable fact that the Ford Mondeo is a more joyful thing to drive.

In the past, none of this would have mattered. Fleet managers would have bought 100 of whichever was the cheapest, and Jenkins from Pots, Pans and Pyrex would have had no say in the matter. Those days, however, are gone. The travelling salesman is now an internet address, and the mini MPV has bopped the traditional saloon on the head. I cannot think of the question in today’s climate to which the answer is “A Vauxhall Insignia”. And I’m surprised my colleagues on the car of the year jury didn’t notice this as well.

Then I keep remembering the Renault 9 and I’m not surprised at all.

I feel, I really do, for the bosses at GM who’ve laboured so hard to make this car. It’s way better than the Vectra. It looks as though they were bothered. But asking their dealerships to sell such a thing in today’s world is a bit like asking men in the first world war trenches to charge the enemy’s machinegun nests with spears.

Right now, there are two paths you can go down. You can either adopt the Irish attitude to the impending catastrophe and party like it’s 1999. In which case you are better off ignoring the Vauxhall and buying a 24ft Donzi speedboat instead.

Or you can actually start to make some sensible preparations for the complete breakdown in society. In which case you don’t want a Vauxhall either. Better to spend the money on a pair of shotguns and an allotment.

quote:

A loss of nearly 42,000 jobs last month pushed California's unemployment rate to 8.4%, a 14-year high[/b] and the third-highest jobless rate in the country.

California's November unemployment figure lagged behind only Michigan with its crippled automobile industry at 9.6% and Rhode Island at 9.3% after job cuts this year in retail, manufacturing and services.

Nationally, unemployment hit 6.7% in November. In Los Angeles County, it rose to 8.9% in November from 8.3% in October.

The state's jobless rate was up from 8.2% in October, the Employment Development Department reported Friday.

And economists say the grim news isn't over.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:42 schreef paullo het volgende:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4668112n

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:51 schreef jogy het volgende:


I think mainly this is because the government is not telling us the truth.

senior bankers in the past couple of weeks and their story is rather different.
They talk about a total financial meltdown. They talk about the End of Days.

You can forget Iceland. From what I gather, Spain has had it. Along with Italy, Ireland and very possibly the UK.

without money there will be no business. No means of selling goods. No means of transporting them. No means of making them in the first place even.

It’ll be a world without power or fuel, and with no fuel there’s no way the modern agricultural system can be maintained. Which means there will be no food either. You might like to stop and think about that for a while.

instead of telling us straight, it calls the crisis the “credit crunch” to make it sound like a breakfast cereal

If an enormous meteorite was heading our way and the authorities knew it couldn’t be stopped or diverted, why bother telling anyone? Best to let us soldier on in the dark until it all goes dark for real.

Right now, there are two paths you can go down. You can either adopt the Irish attitude to the impending catastrophe and party like it’s 1999. In which case you are better off ignoring the Vauxhall and buying a 24ft Donzi speedboat instead.

Or you can actually start to make some sensible preparations for the complete breakdown in society. In which case you don’t want a Vauxhall either. Better to spend the money on a pair of shotguns and an allotment.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 18:03 schreef SjonLok het volgende:
Het gaat ook wel erg hard met de werkloosheid in de VS:

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 18:20 schreef YuckFou het volgende:
Heel hard, een vriendje van me die in de financiën zit vertelde me dat het daar momenteel met 600.000 per week omhoog gaat...600.000 dat is wat het CBS hier voor het gehele komende jaar voorspelt

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 18:32 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
Dit lijkt me wel erg overdreven.... dat het knak zegt geloof ik wel.... Maar dit is wel bijzonder explosief.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 18:38 schreef YuckFou het volgende:

[..]

Hij werkt bij een pensioenfonds wat alle zeilen bij moet zetten en dan nog letterlijk meer dan een miljard is verloren, als ik iemand geloof die me kan vertellen wat er werkelijk aan de hand is, is hij het wel, in ieder geval vertrouw ik hem veel meer dan alle "naar buiten gebrachte persberichten" en "vrijgegeven informatie" bij elkaar, dat soort jongens krijgt tig-honderd mails per dag met economische informatie en weten heel wat beter wat er echt aan de hand is dan wij die het vanuit de mainstream media moeten vernemen, of heb je ook een bloomberg account?
*trust no one....*

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 18:32 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

Dit lijkt me wel erg overdreven.... dat het knak zegt geloof ik wel.... Maar dit is wel bijzonder explosief.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 18:58 schreef SjonLok het volgende:

[..]

In het bericht dat ik plaatste, werd geschreven dat er in California in 1 maand tijd meer dan 40.000 werklozen bijkomen. Dat is net iets meer dan 0,1% van het totale inwoneraantal.

Als je daar doortrekt naar de totale USA met meer dan 300 miljoen inwoners, dan kom je op meer dan 300.000 werklozen per maand extra. De ene staat wordt meer getroffen dan de andere (auto-inustrie in Detroit, Banken in New York), dus het cijfer kan aanwijken.
Maar duidelijk is wel dat het aantal werklozen nu met honderduizenden per maand gaat.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:38 schreef __Saviour__ het volgende:

Maar aan de andere kant van de wereld staan ook reusachtige economieën te trappelen om een grote rol op te eisen.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:02 schreef Swetsenegger het volgende:

[..]

Welke dan? China?

30.000 fabriken in GuangDong zijn al failliet. In Shenzen lopen miljoenen mensen werkloos rond. Een groot gedeelte van de chinese economie draait op de US

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:09 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

[..]

En de EU.... en nog wat blokken.
Dat China binnenlands potentieel heeft zal denk ik niemand over twijfelen.
Zelfs binnen Azië is het een player van formaat.
Nu zie je eigenlijk de omgekeerde overshoot van jaren lang flinke-ongecontroleerde groei. Bedrijven die bijzonder zwaar leunen op de export in combinatie van een unieke financiële gebeurtenis.
En de eigen inwoners zijn beperkt/niet kapitaal krachtig genoeg om deze goederen binnenlands af te nemen.
Met als gevolg... sluiting.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:12 schreef henkway het volgende:

[..]

maar de fabrieken van oversized spijkerbroeken draaien slecht denk ik

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:25 schreef PietjePuk007 het volgende:

[..]

Het is de vice-president, normaal zijn 't alleen hoedjes uit BNW die zoiets roepen .

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:02 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
Per maand ligt het getal nu rond de 574 K.... Maar YuckFou schreef dat dit per week is (en dat is wel heel erg rap).

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:59 schreef YuckFou het volgende:

[..]

I stand corrected...het is per maand niet per week, met mijn excuus voor de verwarring

Daar werkt trouwens ook een Nederlander.. op een hoge positie.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 17:42 schreef paullo het volgende:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4668112n

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 20:23 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

[..]

Grumbl.... en ik maar zoeken op de Conference Board

Wat heb ik gemist ?!

Daar werkt trouwens ook een Nederlander.. op een hoge positie.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 20:23 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
Daar werkt trouwens ook een Nederlander.. op een hoge positie.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 20:36 schreef ItaloDancer het volgende:
http://videoplayer.neos.nl/bnr/index.php?show=movie_detail&itemId=875

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 20:39 schreef Lemmeb het volgende:

[..]

'Ik denk niet dat de Amerikaanse economie in een diepe recessie zal komen, maar wel voor een langere tijd in een lager tempo zal groeien.'

Achja, wat weet zo'n vent nou.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 20:40 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

[..]

Snel gevonden.

quote:

Hey Barack…you might want to see this…
December 20, 2008 – 1:57 pm

The FDIC is running out of cash. Quickly. In a press release earlier this week, the FDIC noted that the Deposit Insurance Fund shrank considerably last quarter:

The FDIC also announced that in the third quarter, the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) decreased by 23.5 percent ($10.6 billion) to $34.6 billion (unaudited). The reduction in the DIF was primarily due to an $11.9 billion increase in loss provisions for bank failures, which represents the estimated losses for FDIC-insured institutions that are likely to fail over the next 12 months. Accrued assessment income increased the fund by $881 million. Interest earned, combined with realized and unrealized gains (losses) on securities, added $653 million to the insurance fund.

According to the Journal article that covered the release, that figure represents 0.76% of total insured deposits ($4.6 trillion) in the U.S.

The key fact to understand here is that the Federal Government, via FDIC, is on the hook to bail out bank depositors. Keep this in mind next time you wonder why the banks have received an open credit line to the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Government is on the hook to bail out depositors and it doesn’t have the money to do so. It has to prop them up or let them fail.

What would have happened in early October if the banking system had been allowed to collapse? Depositors would have run to the bank to discover not only that banks are insolvent, but that FDIC doesn’t have the cash to pay them off.

And what would Congress have done? Passed a $4.6 trillion bailout bill to pay back depositors? As large as it is, the $700 billion TARP bailout is small by comparison. I know the Fed has now agreed to “print” an unlimited amount of money to buy Treasuries in order to keep interest rates low, but could they fund $4.6 trillion of government obligations in one shot?

Three other observations I’d like to make:

* FDIC’s $34.6 billion fund is mostly invested in Treasury bonds. Like the Social Security “Trust Fund,” it’s invested in IOUs the government has written to itself. But what is Uncle Sam’s IOU actually worth when he’s already written $60 trillion of them? (Adding the long-term liabilities for Social Security/Medicare to the trillions of new guarantees made in the last few months.)
* Has anyone seen the Brad Pitt/Edward Norton movie “Fight Club?” Their plan, you may recall, is to blow up credit card company buildings so that their records disappear and “everyone goes back to $0.” If the banking system fails, the Federal Government very likely won’t be able to bail out depositors. Everyone with money in a bank will go back to $0.
* The $4.6 trillion figure is only insured deposits. It doesn’t include the FDIC’s new guarantees backing corporate debt under the “temporary liquidity guarantee program.” Banks including B of A, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Chase, Citigroup, GE and Wells Fargo are availing themselves of this program, selling tens of bilions of dollars of debt insured by FDIC. Asset managers are thrilled to scoop up this debt. They get a little extra yield over Treasuries and a government guarantee to boot! Nevermind that FDIC doesn’t actually have any cash to pay claims should any of these companies default…

…

I wonder if the $4.6 trillion figure of total insured deposits takes into account the new limit of $250,000. According to a chart on page 32 of the FDIC’s 2007 annual report, insured deposits as of Sept. 30th 2007 were about $4.1 trillion and growing quickly. But back then, deposits were only insured up to $100,000. Did the boost to $250,000 only increase insured deposits by 10%? Maybe. I’m not sure.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 21:15 schreef pberends het volgende:
Hahaha, die Biden is prachtig, praat altijd zijn mond voorbij.

quote:

My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

quote:

Still, there are limits to how much spinning a flaw can accomplish. Even the otherwise well-spoken Ronald Reagan still gets lambasted today by some historians for his faux pas of leaving a microphone on and then proceeding to joke around with the line, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” Not to mention that unlike Reagan, Bush has no “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” sound bite, or an high approval rating to fall back on.

Reagan is an interesting character to take into consideration when examining presidential legacies. The man has been dead for four years, out of the public eye for 14 years and out of office for 19 years, and yet every year Republicans and Democrats alike make favorable comments about him. As Bush is the first two-term Republican president since Reagan, it goes without saying that he has much to live up to.

quote:

Op zaterdag 20 december 2008 19:59 schreef YuckFou het volgende:

[..]

I stand corrected...het is per maand niet per week, met mijn excuus voor de verwarring

quote:

In the week ending Dec. 13, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 554,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 575,000. The 4-week moving average was 543,750, an increase of 2,750 from the previous week's revised average of 541,000.
bron

quote:

Op zondag 21 december 2008 11:05 schreef YuckFou het volgende:

[..]

Het is toch per week:
[..]

Het cijfers hier geven het gemiddelde aan, niet per maand, maar per week
Het was 575K maar is gedaald naar 554K per week dus...
*pijnlijk*