The Existentialist Cowboy: "Just get over it" or why they called it the Great Depression

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

"Just get over it" or why they called it the Great Depression

Other titles for this trippy survey might include "I'm Forever Blowing Housing Bubbles" or "Brother, Can You Spare a Stock Option that's Actually Worth Something?" or "Rock me, Alan Greenspan!"

When oil is traded in Euros --not dollars --there will be fire sales on nostalgia for the housing boom and those days, now only dimly remembered, when the dollar was "good as gold".

I'm Forever Blowing (housing) Bubbles

Britons Withdraw Billions in Bank Run
Monday, September 17, 2007 9:08:30 AM

Shares in one of Britain's largest lenders tumbled another 30 percent Monday as customers, driven by fears of insolvency, made run on the bank and withdrew billions.

Treasury Secretary Alistair Darling sought to assure depositors that their money was safe, even as former U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan warned of difficulties ahead in Britain's booming housing market.

Trading in the bank's shares was briefly suspended Monday morning, but not before they tumbled 140 pence to 298 pence ($2.81 to $5.98), on top of a 31 percent fall Friday. By late morning, shares hovered around 300 pence. ...

Amid all this frivolity, a gentle reminder from Alan Greenspan. Ah ...by the way...the war crime still going on in Iraq was all about oil.

Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m
Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters in New York
Sunday September 16, 2007
The Observer
The man once regarded as the world's most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was 'largely' about oil.

Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets.

In his long-awaited memoir - out tomorrow in the US - Greenspan, 81, who served as chairman of the US Federal Reserve for almost two decades, writes: 'I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.'

What took ya' so long, Alan! The Cowboy's been saying this for years. Uh...Alan ... can ya' spare a bro a dime?

Connie Frances: Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

There was a time --somewhere between the Great Depression and the administration of Richard Nixon who took the US off the gold standard, that the dollar was actually worth something.

What's weighing on the markets?
Traders are worried by the market direction
Stock markets and bond markets around the world are wobbling over the impact of higher interest rates. But why are financial markets so rattled?

What is happening to interest rates?

The last few years have seen very low interest rates around the world.

Central banks have kept short-term interest rates low as inflation seemed contained and growth was modest, especially in Europe and Japan.

And the bond markets, which set long-term interest rates, have also kept long-term rates - which normally are higher because of worries about future inflation - near the same low levels.
...