GlobalIntelHub2

Savers And The ‘Real’ $10.8 Trillion Cost Of ZIRP

Elite Forex Blog - Market Research & Analysis

Via Chris Turner,
  1. Total Savings – FRED
  2. Average interest rates on savings deposits – FRED (M2OWN)
  3. Interest Income – IRS tax stats, NIPA tables
  4. Effective Federal Funds Rate (FRED)
The good news behind the bottom 85% of close-to-retiree status Baby Boomers that participate in the “markets” via sub $50,000 retirement money is that at some point, the voters might actually get smart and get mad at how much money has been siphoned from them.  Consult the chart below to see a historical relationship between total savings and amount of interest income earned on the savings.
 [6]
Note that prior to 2001, as savings increased (blue line), interest income received increased (red line) proportionally.  However, after 2001, the interest earned stopped increasing.  The green line shows the effective interest paid on interest bearing accounts.
Scaling into the shaded area representing 1986 to present, the following chart depicts the actual Fed Funds rate determined by FOMC.
 [7]
As savings increased when Fed Funds rate remained around 5%, interest income continued to rise.  However, post 2001, the interest income received stopped growing at the same rate.  With the exception of 2005 to 2008 when rates went back to “normal” in the 5% range – the interest income earned has remained stable at just under 1 trillion (Ben Bernanke is so smart).
Let’s apply some thought experiments and make a couple calculations – what would happen if the FOMC were removed and the Fed Funds rate “floated?”  Using average historical rates from the 1920’s for the 10 year note– the mean rate would sit around 5.82%.  With a floating Fed Funds rate, banks would be competing for money and providing responsible savers with some interest income.  Voila, a calculation is borne:
 [8]
By calculating the estimated interest income from historical ratios (orange shaded area), we can see that as of July 2013, approximate interest income would be just over 3 trillion (1/5th of GDP) on savings of 6.8 trillion (using the left scale).  Whereas the actual interest income reported by NIPA remained at 1.1 Trillion, the difference in interest received and lost interest equals roughly 2 Trillion.  Remember, this is interest income to SAVERS forever lost since 2001.  By aggregating the entire shaded orange area, SAVERS have missed out on a whopping 10.8 Trillion in earned interest usage.  The final chart above makes a loud and clear statement toward the beneficiaries of the low interest rate environment.

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/476537

Continue Reading
GlobalIntelHub2

Americans’ Confidence in Congress Falls to Lowest on Record

Elite Forex Blog - Market Research & Analysis

Congress ranks last on list of 16 institutions; military earns top spot again

by Elizabeth Mendes and Joy Wilke
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ confidence in Congress as an institution is down to 10%, ranking the legislative body last on a list of 16 societal institutions for the fourth straight year. This is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found, not only for Congress, but for any institution on record. Americans remain most confident in the military, at 76%.
I am going to read you a list of institutions in American society. Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one -- a great deal, quite a lot, some, or very little? June 2013 results
Small business and the police also continue to rank highly, with 65% and 57% of Americans, respectively, expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in these institutions. Joining Congress at the bottom of the list are Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and organized labor. Congress’ low position is further underscored when one looks at the percentage of Americans who have little or no confidence in each institution. The slight majority of Americans, 52%, have this level of confidence in Congress, compared with 31% for HMOs.
Americans’ confidence in several institutions measured in the June 1-4 Gallup poll has shifted since last year. Americans have become more confident in banks, organized religion, and public schools, and less confident in the U.S. medical system, the Supreme Court, and Congress.
Confidence in Congress Falls to Record Low
The percentage of Americans expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress is the lowest for a trend that dates back to 1973. The high point for Congress, 42%, came in that year.
Confidence in Congress has been at its lowest points for several years, while it was higher in the mid-1980s and in the early 2000s.
Confidence in Congress, Trend Since 1973
In Contrast to Past, Republicans, Democrats Hold Congress in Equally Low Regard
Democrats, independents, and Republicans are about equally likely to express low confidence in Congress. This is a change from the past and likely reflects the split control of Congress.
Historically, members of each major party expressed greater confidence in Congress when their party held control of both houses. During most years of the Republican-controlled House and Senate in the early to mid-2000s, Republicans were at least slightly more likely than Democrats to express confidence in Congress. After the Democratic Party took over both houses in 2007, however, Democrats began reporting more confidence than Republicans in the institution.
Between 2009 and 2012, a period that saw Congress come under split control, these partisan differences gradually diminished, and this year, Democrats are a mere two percentage points more likely than Republicans to report having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress.
Trend: Confidence in Congress, 2000-2013, by Party ID
Bottom Line
Americans’ confidence in Congress is not only at its lowest point on record, but also is the worst Gallup has ever found for any institution it has measured since 1973. This low level of confidence is in line with Americans’low job approval of Congress, which has also been stuck below 30% for years.
The divided Congress, with Democrats controlling the Senate and Republicans the House, is likely part of the reason for the low levels of confidence rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans express, and is tied to Americans’ frustrations with Congress’ inability to get much done.
Gallup will explore the long-term trends in Americans’ confidence in other key institutions in future stories.
Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 1-4, 2013, with a random sample of 1,529 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cellphone numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, nonresponse, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cellphone only/landline only/both, cellphone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2012 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the July-December 2011 National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2010 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
For more details on Gallup’s polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163052/americans-confidence-congress-falls-lowest-record.aspx

Continue Reading
GlobalIntelHub2

China’s Great Humiliation

Elite Forex Blog - Market Research & Analysis

China’s Great Humiliation

MODERN MYTH’S OF NATIONAL TRIUMPH
Writing in ‘Wall Street Journal’ and saying China needs “a new national story”, Orville Schlee and John Delury basically claim China has for too long been hobbled and fettered, ideologically, by its modern history of humiliation. This was due to the so-called unequal treaties it was forced to sign with what for Chinese, were the Western Barbarians. These unequal treaties started with the British in 1842.
The cult of national humiliation was used by Mao Zedong, founding the Peoples Republic in 1949 when he said “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation.”
Schlee and Delury contrast that with the US and France:
“Every July, amid festivities and fireworks, the U.S. and France mark their birth as nations”. They claim that in both cases this started with triumph:  “Accustomed as we are in the West to histories that begin with triumph—the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the storming of the Bastille—it may seem strange that China, the fast-rising dynamo of the East, marks the beginning of its journey to modern nationhood in a very different way: with the shock of unexpected defeat and the loss of national greatness”.
Chinese state mythology, to be sure, makes it obligatory for every schoolchild to know China’s official Before and After – Before and After the First Opium War of 1839-42. Schlee and Delury say this is comparable with Americans teaching children the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, and French forcing all schoolchildren to learn La Marseillaise, but in China’s case it is a cult of national humiliation and the natural desire for revenge.
In fact all three events were revolutionary, included ‘revanchist’ motives, involved mass killing and were overturned and superceded by the real world. Teaching everybody, not only schoolchildren the differences between Before 2008, and After the crisis, are a lot more relevant to the modern world.
CHINA’S REBALANCING IS ALSO CULTURAL
When or if China experiences a massive financial and economic crisis comparable to that of 2008 in the US, France, other European countries, Japan, and other developed countries this may be as humilating for China as its 1842 defeat by the British in the First Opium War. It will be humiliating in the same way, but possibly not as intensely, as the deep humiliation suffered by the populations of the PIIGS countries, doomed to years (even a decade) of austerity, their youth forced to emigrate.
China’s slowing economy is taken as “a danger signal”, by many in the West, only for what Chinese slowing will or can do to global economic growth.
It is usually ignored for what it is: a danger signal generated by and inside the Chinese economy and society. It warns that China can suffer a finance-triggered crash exactly like the Western economies. Very little prevents this – and the reason is because China has caught up. China is so far from a humiliated nation that, although Scheel and Delury don’t exactly say this, its “170-year-old cult of national humilation” is a lot more than simply dangerous, if it affected Chinese political decisions.
This is not the case, but the reasons should alarm us even more. China has learned from the Western crisis of 2008 and its sequels. China is alarmed and perplexed, confused in the same way as Western deciders, or non-deciders. China knows this is a terminal crisis, but does not know what comes next.
The almost natural reflex action is to slow down, like driving in fog, hail or heavy rain.
National symbols, historical myths are in any case unrelated to the modern global economy. It is also arguable China has re-interpreted its 170 years of humiliation much more constructively than Americans, today, treat and mistreat the Declaration of Independence, and French fumble with the “real meanings” of the Storming of the Bastille.
All three were war-related events. All three events presaged future wars – civil wars. None of then had anything to do with the global economy’s fantastic morph into uncharted waters since 2008. Inside the US and France, today, their historical relics are criticised by some as a “distraction”, even an irritation. 
For Chinese, national mythology makes The Temple of the Tranquil Seas, in Nanjing, the place where Chinese forces signed a humiliating surrender deal with British forces, a “curious porthole into the bitter past of foreign incursion and exploitation”. Today, countries like Cyprus must sign with the Troika, for last-minute bailouts under humiliating conditions. Across the OECD countries and with very few exceptions, the tens of millions of additional unemployeds since 2008 must accept the humiliation of long-term joblessness.
FORGET THE FIREWORKS
As it is, this July 14, many French towns and smaller cities have quietly shelved their traditional fireworks shows. Even when produced and sold by China, as most are, they are too expensive.
As we know, both Republicans and Democrats trace their ideologies to July 4. Both Napoleon and French Republicans claimed legitimity from July 14. In China, both the Nationalists and Communists constructed their ideologies with claimed inspiration from the August 1842 Nanjing Treaty. In no case did this prevent intense conflict, even civil war. Arguments can be made that all three “founding national events” sowed the seeds of civil war.
Facing economic crisis and being unable to trace it to unequal trade treaties, dumping, currency devaluation, commodity or stock price manipulation – or any other hostile action called Economic War – the fireworks of Great Power conflict, spurred by economic war, are at present very unlikely. This is because the crisis is too grave, not the opposite.
The fact that the Asian Locomotives, following the Asian Tigers, have slowed and then slowed again, while the other BRICs and G20 former high-growth Emerging economies, such as Brazil, are almost in recession should alert us to the real situation. For China, simply because of its massive size and long history, its deep experience of the recent high-growth phase of economic globalization, the roles of rebalancing – firstly to slow the economy – are clearly understood.
The motives for this are however more complex in the Chinese case, than in the Western economies which were subjected to chaotic and unexpected slowing, turning it into an inevitable crash. China in now way wants to repeat that humiliation, dealt to and inflicted on the West by itself. China therefore plans for controlled slowing – with all the dangers that implies.
As the Western economies have slowly understood, since 2008, there is little or no symmetry between the growth economy and decline economy. They are not simple red lines and blue lines on a chart, the one canceling the other. They are different processes – understood, now, by the admission of some Western economists, if not politicians, that “restoring growth” may not be conventionally possible or may have to be “heterogeneous”, spread over a long time period, staggered, or suchlike.  This recognition is often given coded language for example “double dip and triple dip”, “negative growth”.
China rides the Dragon. The capture by British forces of a Chinese Imperial Rising Dragon flag at the Battle of Chusan, during the First Opium War, was a key event in this key war. The Dragon, in Chinese mythology, can disappear in a flash and as a mythological animal is both revered and feared. Growth of the economy, in China, may be so extremely compressible that for all intents and purposes it disappears from view.
This would be more than simply a national humiliation – it would be a global catastrophe.
By Andrew McKillop
Former chief policy analyst, Division A Policy, DG XVII Energy, European Commission. Andrew McKillop Biographic Highlights
Continue Reading
GlobalIntelHub2

A 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act

Elite Forex Blog - Market Research & Analysis
We are confident the following amusing bill titled grandiosely enough “A 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act” (the Bill text here) by Elizabeth Warren, John McCain et al, to pretend Congress is not a bought and paid for by Wall Street marionette, will have a last minute rider that says “Compliance with any or all of the above provisions is purely voluntary.”
Senators Warren, McCain, Cantwell, and King Introduce 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John McCain (R-AZ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Angus King (I-ME) today will introduce the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, a modern version of the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall) that reduces risk for the American taxpayer in the financial system and decreases the likelihood of future financial crises.
The legislation introduced today would separate traditional banks that have savings and checking accounts and are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from riskier financial institutions that offer services such as investment banking, insurance, swaps dealing, and hedge fund and private equity activities. This bill would clarify regulatory interpretations of banking law provisions that undermined the protections under the original Glass-Steagall and would make “Too Big to Fail” institutions smaller and safer, minimizing the likelihood of a government bailout.
“Since core provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act were repealed in 1999, shattering the wall dividing commercial banks and investment banks, a culture of dangerous greed and excessive risk-taking has taken root in the banking world,” said Senator John McCain. “Big Wall Street institutions should be free to engage in transactions with significant risk, but not with federally insured deposits. If enacted, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act would not end Too-Big-to-Fail.  But, it would rebuild the wall between commercial and investment banking that was in place for over 60 years, restore confidence in the system, and reduce risk for the American taxpayer.”
“Despite the progress we’ve made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten the economy,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren.  “The four biggest banks are now 30% larger than they were just five years ago, and they have continued to engage in dangerous, high-risk practices that could once again put our economy at risk.  The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will reestablish a wall between commercial and investment banking, make our financial system more stable and secure, and protect American families.”
“Too many Main Streets across America have paid the price for risky gambling on Wall Street,” Senator Maria Cantwell said. “This bill would restore clear bright lines that separate risky activities from the traditional banking system. It’s time to restore faith in our financial institutions by rebuilding the firewall that protected our economy for decades in the wake of the Great Depression. Restoring Glass-Steagall would focus our financial system where it belongs: getting capital into the hands of job creators and businesses on Main Streets across America.”
“As Maine families continue to feel the sting of the 2008 economic downturn, America’s largest financial institutions continue to engage in risky banking and investment activities that threaten the health of our financial sector and our economy as a whole. While recent efforts at financial sector regulatory reform attempt to address the ‘too big to fail’ phenomenon, Congress must take additional steps to see that American taxpayers aren’t again faced with having to bail out big Wall Street institutions while Main Street suffers,” Senator Angus King said. “While the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act is not the silver bullet to end ‘too big to fail,’ the legislation’s re-establishment of clear separations between retail and investment banking, as well as its restrictions on banking activities, will limit government guarantees to insured depository institutions and provide strong protections against the spillover effects should a financial institution fail.”
The original Glass-Steagall legislation was introduced in response to the financial crash of 1929 and separated depository banks from investment banks. The idea was to divide the risky activities of investment banks from the core depository functions that consumers rely upon every day.  Starting in the 1980s, regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reinterpreted longstanding legal terms in ways that slowly broke down the wall between investment and depository banking and weakened Glass-Steagall. In 1999, after 12 attempts at repeal, Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to repeal the core provisions of Glass-Steagall.
WASHINGTON — Sens. Elizabeth Warren and John McCain, along with two other colleagues, introduced legislation Thursday to reinstate the Glass-Steagall prohibition on federally insured banks from also operating as investment banks.
The legislation would minimize the risk of future goverment bailouts by forcing banks some still consider “too big to fail” to become smaller.
Warren (D-Mass.), an outspoken liberal, and McCain (R-Ariz.), a conservative who was his party’s 2008 presidential nominee, are an unlikely pair.
But they are united in the belief that separating traditional deposit-taking from investment activities would reduce risk in the banking system and lessen the chance of future bailouts.
The two were joined by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) andAngus King (I-Maine) in introducing the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) proposed similar legislation in May.
Continue Reading
GlobalIntelHub2

9 Plagues That Are Collapsing Capitalism

Elite Forex Blog - Market Research & Analysis
Via Jim Quinn’s Burning Platform blog (authored by Paul Rosenberg of FreemansPerspective blog),
Let me be blunt: Our capitalist system is approaching failure.
Or, perhaps better said: Our marginally capitalist, partly-free market systems are approaching a massive collapse.
Not because of what capitalism is, mind you, but because the powers that be have bastardized it.
Capitalism can bear many distortions and abuses, but it is not indestructible.
And, make no mistake, the ‘capitalist’ system we have today has been massively corrupted, so much so that it’s sagging under the load… and will continue to do so until the proverbial straw breaks its back.

The 9 Plagues

1. The average producer is being stripped bare. In the US, for example, the total take of taxes has not risen dramatically, but fewer and fewer people actually pay them. There was a big uproar during the last election cycle over the fact that 47% of working-aged Americans paid no income tax. That means that the half who do work (read suckers) are paying the whole. And more than that, they are also paying for the many millions who are on food stamps and disability. Producers are being punished and abused, made into chumps.
2. Thrift is essentially impossible. I’ve explained this in detail previously, but a hundred years ago, it was possible for an average person to accumulate money. Mechanics, carpenters, and shop owners slowly filled their bank accounts with gold and silver. It was common for them to make business loans and to retire comfortably. But now, all of our surplus is drained away to capital cities, where it is poured down the drains of welfare, warfare, and political lunacy. Money has been removed from the hands that made it, and moved into the hands of non-producers, liars, and destroyers.
3. In 2008, US federal government regulations cost an estimated $1.75 trillion, an amount equal to 14 percent of US national income. Let me restate: Simply complying with regulations costs American businesses more than $1,750,000,000,000 (that’s $1.75 Trillion) every year. This, again, is money taken out of production and wasted on political lunacy.
4. Small businesses are being squeezed out. Take a look at the two graphs below, and understand that as small businesses are squeezed out, only the large corporations remain. These days, only the largest and best-connected entities are able to get their concerns dealt with (by the politicians they fund). Small operations are cut off from the redress of their grievances and are crushed by taxes and regulation. And don’t forget the comments of Mussolini:
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
While there may be no dictator, state/corporate partnerships are taking over commerce in the West.
Freeman's Perspective
Freeman's Perspective
5. The military industrial complex is out of control. Their lobbying, fear-mongering, and spending can only be characterized as obscene. Dwight Eisenhower was right when he warned us about this in 1960. It is sad beyond measure that so few Americans took him seriously. Trillions of dollars and millions of productive lives are being spent on the war machines of the West. Never forget that wars destroy massively and produce nothing.
6. All the Western nations now feature large enforcer classes, composed of bureaucrats, law enforcement units, inspectors, and so on. In the US alone this amounts to several million people – none of whom produce anything, and all of whom restrain producers from producing. Millions of people are paid to restrain commerce.
7. We now have a very large financial class in which blindly aggressive people make millions of dollars. The problem is that finance is not productive. It may allocate money in beneficial ways (though it often allocates mainly to itself), but it doesn’t actually produce anything. At present, the allocators get the big bucks, and the producers get scraps.
8. The modern business ethic has become about acquisition only. In more enlightened times, it was also about creating benefit in the world, or at least creating newer and better things. Mere grasping is an insufficient philosophy for capitalism; it leads to dark places.
9. Every nation on the planet is using play money and forcing their inhabitants to use their play money. Moreover, they have super-empowered a small class of Central Banking Elites, who make fortunes on their currency monopolies, and who are entirely unknown to the producers who unwillingly (and unknowingly) purchase jets and yachts for them. Our money systems have brought back aristocracies; a class that is both hidden and immensely powerful.

So What’s Next?

That’s up to the producers. Everything hinges upon them. The game, as it is, depends entirely on them being willing to accept abuse.
All that is necessary to fix this is for the producers to stop being willing victims. Simple, I know, but there is a problem with such a sensible idea:
The producers are convinced that their role in life is only to struggle and obey.
Modern producers believe that the ruling classes have a legitimate right to tell them how much of their money they are entitled to keep, which charity causes they’ll be forced to contribute to, which features their car is required to have, and much, much more. Why? Simply because those other people are in “high positions,” and they (the producers) are in “low positions.” An evil assumption has been planted in their minds:
It is right for important people to order me around.
The productive class holds all the real power, but they are nearly devoid of moral confidence. So, they are abused without end.
Right now, a parasitic ethic rules the West and will continue to rule so long as producers play the part of the suckers. If this continues, what remains of capitalism will grind to a halt and will be overrun by a Neo-Fascist arrangement – not the dictator and swastika variety – but one where the state and powerful business interests merge into one unstoppable and insatiable force.
On the other hand, if ever the producers wake up from their moral coma and reject the role of doormat, they will build a society embodying the ethics of production. It almost sounds impossible, I know. But it is has happened before and could happen again.
It’s up to us.
Continue Reading