Generic Trader's Desktop

From ZeroHedge and John Lohman, the generic Trader's Desktop.

Side note: I hate it when Excel or another piece of productivity software automatically fills patterns for you, thinking it is smarter than you. 

Click through for the full size and description. 

Fed, FedGov Budget, Purchase Power of the Dollar: Three Things that Need Fixing

Yesterday I read this detailing two major things (discounting the The Mogambo Guru ranting style).  First, the value of the dollar today, is less than what a quarter dollar would purchase 40 years ago in 1971.  Second, the US government spent a cumulative $15 billion from 1789 until 1900 (not adjusting for inflation, but you see the idea).

Yikes!  Those are small numbers when compared to today's debt.  Running the numbers, you get roughly .11% of the current country debt, was accumulated in the first 100 years of the Republic.  YOWSA!

Which leads me to this posting over at BigGovernment.com, which details the history of money in the first of a several part series. 

Click through, watch the video, get educated, and I'll post up the next part of the series when I see it.

QOTD: Fed Res Virus Blocker

While reading about the increase in the 30 year mortgage rates on Zero Hedge today, I noticed that one reader/commenter posted a link to the NY Fed's statistics page.  Another, very humors and astute commenter had this reply:

Unfortunately, my virus scanner stops me from connecting to a Federal Reserve site. It claims the website is a known fraud.

Yep, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are thinking exactly that.  So much so, that even yours truly has been tempted send the the NY Fed President's name and "about" page to their "report fraud" email address (found here). 

While the above quote and idea are rather true and humorous to us laymen, they would probably draw an eye of specter from those who control our money supply. 

Picture of the Day: Print & Spend

Thanks to the Daily Reckoning for this one, so be sure to stop over to their site and read all of their good financial insight and data. 

Super Rich & Art: Just Another Dollar Hedge

As Helicopter Ben start's his QE2 this week, we get a few nifty articles from across the pond that art sales are setting records in NYC.  

Just more evidence that those who can insulate themselves from a falling dollar, do!  Unfortunately, for those of us left stuck in the middle between those who received government handouts and the inflation shielded wealthy, we get the full brunt of a year over year 90% increase in cotton, 40% in wheat and corn, and a 15% increase in live cattle.  Truly a case of the haves versus the have nots (as much) and of course, those whom trade votes for payola.

Ain't America grand?

QOTD: Federal Reserve BBQ

From Andrew Breitbart's Big Government, we get a good reminder of the history that is the National Banks of the USA.

We also get this doosey of a quote:

The concept is that if Americans felt richer because their 401Ks went up in value there would be a “wealth effect” encouraging the public to spend more money and businesses to increase capital investments. Unfortunately, this is like starting a barbeque with a flamethrower. You will surely create a fire, but it will probably burn down the neighborhood.

As AK Fan and I discussed, what's the point in feeling richer when you have to pay the increased prices of eggs (up 87% in the last year), beef (35%), wheat (40%), and almost everything else up over 25%.  Most Americans don't need their retirement accounts to go up right now, they just need to be able to earn an honest living so they can feed their families, save, pay off their house, car, student loans, ect, and then save for retirement! 

What is it with Washington and Wall Street elitists that don't see things from the average American's perspective? 

QE 2 & Monetary Treason; A Tale of a Banking Coup

We find ourselves roughly 96 hours away from the close of the polls on potentially the biggest election of our lives.  Unfortunately, we also find ourselves roughly 110 hours away from the biggest announcement the Federal Reserve has ever made.  The perverse part is, the results of Tuesday will largely be outweighed by the actions that the Banking Cartel takes starting on Wednesday.  The Banking Coup of the United States that will start with the QE2 on Wednesday will make South American military coups look like bake sale fundraisers by comparison.  So continues the tail of our decline.  

If you’ve been reading and following along, we have been talking about a lot of financial items over the course of the last week.  Hopefully my readership has picked up on the feed burner known as Zero Hedge and has been reading their raw and unfiltered reality that is our crackerjack economy.  So it should come as no surprise that Helicopter Ben’s Federal Reserve has ceded all of its authority to the primary dealers of market securities.  Effectively, the Fed is dead, and Zero Hedge isn’t the only one to opine (though not so openly) as to the conclusion of these un-Constitutional facts.  

Are we in the early stages of a USA, Weimar Republic?  Considering Congress has failed to do its Constitutional duty for the last 80+ years and regulate monetary policy and our currency, the writing appears to be on the wall.  I am pretty sure that Thomas Jefferson warned us in the early years of our country that a Central Bank’s singular control of the money supply was more dangerous to freedom and our republic than any foreign enemy could ever become.  What would he have said about an all out banking coup?  The primary dealers telling the Fed, directly, how much money to print and pump is the kind of action that we would expect to see in Zimbabwe and other banana republics, not the United States! 

Is this the story of our demise?  Rich Wall Street shysters make their shills at the Federal Reserve print up worthless paper in an effort to absolutely destroy the democracy by entrenching the people in a perilous fight for bare necessities as they sky rocket in price and continue to pile up a mountain of sovereign debt?  If your eyes are shut, then the answer is no, but to those whose eyes are open, it isn’t hard to see why it is important to cast your ballot for freedom on Tuesday.  Is it our only shot at saving our way of life?  Potentially not, but it could be the last, so why take the chance?

So, this weekend, as we go from undecided to the polls, research, think, examine critically, and then swear to yourself, your family, your friends and most importantly, future generations, that we cannot maintain this course of print, pump, spend, and fail.  Promise to be ever vigilant, wherever and however in the education process of our youth, our spouses, our parents and others ignorant of history and the money meddlers.  It is a track that has been tried centuries over and is a failure that is timeless. 

QOTD: Putting and Monetary Policy, the Latest Econ Course Offered at Your Community College

Economic news lately is well, depressing a best.  If you follow what is the truth in the world, you find there is no news in the truth, just more doldrums.  If you are a Zero Hedge reader you might have seen this quote this morning:

Mr. Bernanke has used the analogy of a golfer with a new putter: Unsure how it will work, he finds best strategy is to tap lightly at first and keep tapping until the golfer figures out how best to use the putter.

The Fed has found themselves in a severe catch 22 (or liquidity trap), and now they are using golf as the fundamental "new tool" to bring us back to pre-crisis levels.  As Zero Hedge's articles and authors stated in the link, we're learning as we go?  This from the one organization that is supposed to remain politically and economically neutral?  Putting our way to prosperity will only further sink us into our own Japanese style lost decade, but the concerns of the public and certain Fed Governors are falling on deaf ears to Mr. Bernanke.

Perhaps I'm too negative, cynical, and pessimistic, but what we really should be doing right now is praying Nov. 2 goes the right way. 

QOTD: Bubbles Bubbles Everywhere

If for nothing more than just a few inflation hawks inside the Fed Reserve, than we'd be already melting down.  Or, at least, that is the current convictions of this and several other authors out there in the world.

In a speech just released today and picked up by The Hedge (readers should know that I am referring to Zero Hedge), Dallas Fed Res Bank Dick Fisher (no pun intended, but preferred in this context) had the following remarks:

In my darkest moments, I have begun to wonder if the monetary accommodations we have already engineered might even be working in the wrong places.  A great many baby boomers or older cohorts who played by the rules, saved their money and migrated over time, as prudent investment counselors advise, to short- to intermediate-dated, fixed-income instruments are earning extremely low nominal and real returns on their savings. Further reductions in rates earned on savings will hardly endear the Fed to this portion of the population.

It is nice to see that someone inside the Federal (private) banking cartel has finally admitted that their monetarist, neo-Keynesian policies don't work.  To those of us whom have studied history, it isn't hard to say, "ah yeah!  No shit Sherlock!"  That said, Fed Fisher and his counterpart at the St. Louis Fed should be commended for their hawkish outlooks on inflation and money creation.  Unfortunately, as Zero Hedge opines, they will probably resign be forced out. 

QOTD: Punchbowl

Punchbowl: noun 1) A social entertainment device; 2) A large bowl with which fruit punch, fruit, and alcohol are mixed to provide lubricity of a social gathering; 3) Alternate Definition for Federal Reserve Meetings

A Federal Reserve meeting is just a bunch guys standing around a bunchbowl lighting cigars with $1000 bills.

That was the reply this morning with AK Fan said "I would love to sit in on a fed meeting and listen to their actual concerns."  We were discussing the link to the zero hedge article and yours truly came up with the alternate definition of a punchowl.  Remember, unlike Helo-Ben, please drink responsibly.