From Zero Hedge.
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"So what do I worry about? I worry that investors forget how devastating a deep investment loss can be on a portfolio. I worry that the constant hope for central bank action has given investors a false sense of security that recessions and deep market downturns can be made obsolete. I worry that the depth of the recessions and downturns – when they occur – will be much deeper precisely because of the speculation, moral hazard, and misallocation of resources that monetary authorities have encouraged. I worry that both a global recession and severe market downturn are closer at hand than investors assume, partly despite, and partly because, they have so fully embraced the illusory salvation of monetary intervention."
This is a theme I have discusssed on these pages. Specifically here, seven months ago, where I said: "I see the incessant focus on the power of the central bank to manage an economy as being misguided and inappropriate. The world reached a financial crisis principally because of a lack of proper regulation and enforcement of the financial services industry. In addtion to this, the Eurozone reached their crisis because they gave up their currencies, and the global trade system shifted production to Germany for high valued manufacturing and China for low valued manufacturing. Regardless of the price level, these economies are not going to generate jobs for their unemployed. Many academics and market participants who view religion as nothing more than superstition, seem to have elevated the central banks to Christ-like status. " Take that dub step. Atrticle plays to my bias.
The death penalty narrative. Early interdiction can prevent huge costs to society.TED Talk. Could it work? Apparently some states are already doing it (Texas is not).
And according to the mayor of regional capital Palermo, the misery caused by financial crisis could spark a "civil war" in the southern island of Sicily.
"Because of an explosive mix of despair felt by many families and the stranglehold of organised crime, a civil war could even break out," mayor Leoluca Orlando said. "Sicily is the Greece of Italy," Mr Orlando, a member of the anti-corruption Italy of Values party and a staunch anti-Mafia champion, said. "Many businesses are shutting, families on low incomes can no longer pay their electricity bills," he said. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mario Monti expressed concern that the region ran the risk of bankruptcy. In only my third post I identified this as a major risk to the global eonomy. Nearly a year ago, I wrote:"If you don’t start designing polices, like a fiscal stimulus, that will get the poor working again your system will become destabilized and may implode." And we aren't even close to a bottom for Europe yet. The US will not be immune. "Doyle said it was not just a matter of the fund's incompetence amid the global crisis and in surveillance ahead of the eurozone crisis, but because the institution deliberately shirked its responsibilities.
'The substantive difficulties in these crises, as with others, were identified well in advance but were suppressed here,' he wrote. 'Timely sustained warnings were of the essence. So the failure of Fund to issue them is a failing of the first order,' Doyle said.That inaction has caused suffering for many, including Greece, and 'the second global reserve currency (euro) is on the brink'. The IMF has been 'playing catch-up' in reactive responses in last-ditch efforts to save it, the economist charged." From your lips to God's ears. Research from the Lancet as discussed in the National Post. (Thanks Dan)
"A growing body of evidence shows the cumulative effects of all that sitting are not easily remediable by exercise. For example, a 2010 study of more than 100,000 adults in the American Journal of Epidemiology [[external] PDF] found those who sat for more than six hours a day were more likely to die than those who sat for less than three, even if the former exercised regularly and the latter did no exercise at all. An earlier study of 17,000 Canadians (“Sitting time and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer”) found much the same." ...to quote Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises (just saw it-very good).
"There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne," whispers Ann Hathaway's cat burglar. "You and your friends better batten down the hatches, 'cause when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us." Fitch downgrades three Japanese banks. Will they be able to payoff their CDS? Spain now sees the recession continuing through 2013 (prevoiusly forecasting growth of 2%). Bank of England and Geithner (then chair of the NY Fed) knew about the LIBOR rigging as early as 2008. They allowed the rigging to continue for at least another year. Geithner said so in his own emails.
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