THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES:
The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences.
THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES:
9x times a problem doesn’t make the problem smaller does it? What could possibly go wrong?
GEEK ALERT: Some technical stuff. Really scary technical stuff. -Ed
“This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out,” Rastani said on an interview with BBC on Monday morning. “The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.”
At first blush I thought, ‘At long last, the truth’ but it turns out that the BBC was likely punked. -sigh- -Ed.
“We’re Here To Help”…Again, we simply cannot overemphasize the importance of getting the big picture macro model right as we make investment decisions ahead. Our primary goal is simply to stay in harmony with directional changes in financial asset and hard asset prices ahead, not necessarily making continual value judgments about policy.
A distressing signal came from FedEx Corp, the world’s No. 2 package delivery company, which many on Wall Street look to as an economic bellwether. FedEx lowered its full-year profit outlook last week, citing high fuel costs and a struggling global economy.
THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES:
Productive wealth has been trapped in a web of parasitic theft, counterfeiting, liability evasion, non-regulation, and prosecutorial non-accountability. All the fundamental attributes of a functioning exchange economy have been warped to reward creative criminals.
The NSBA’s Mid-Year Economic Report, which surveyed 400 of the group’s members online between June 24 and July 11, offered little to be optimistic about:
More than one-third say they aren’t confident about the future of their business from a financial perspective
Eighty-eight percent anticipate a recession or flat economy in the next year, an increase from 78 percent six months ago
Forty-five percent expect no growth opportunities in the coming year, up from 40 percent in December.
Dispatches From The Front 