Japan is now in a huge crisis. A horrible crisis! What might happen as this crisis continues, falls further, and eventually, moves toward recovery? Will this crisis affect the United States economy? Will the Federal Reserve become stuck in a box?
I am not an economist, therefore, what I am about to write is only my own view of things unfolding from my plate of tea leaves.
Obama and Bernanke have spent the entire 2.5 years enriching the financial system through freebees, and toxic bond exchanges in order to bathe the bankstas and corporate elite with the government’s corporate welfare enrichment program of unearned liquidity, while ignoring a forward moving and sustainable real economic stimulus right here at home.
Now Japan is in a meltdown, literally, and finding itself underwater with tens of thousands dead, injured, and under fear of radiation fallout. Their nuclear reactors are in danger of core meltdowns. As a remedy, Japan is saturating the core with enriched seawater, which is highly corrosive, due to the salt content. This means that the reactors will be useless and eventually, dismantled.
It is very likely that as a result of this crisis, the government of Japan will provide trillions of dollars of economic stimulus to rebuild what has been damaged and destroyed. It may take trillions of yen to fix bridges, roads, rebuild buildings, dismantle unusable infrastructure, help landowners with rebuilding, and replacement of goods no longer functional, as well as the disposal of rotten, and moldy material, along with many other costs not mentioned here.
Hot monies will likely be flowing into the country, which could be turned into bonds, and then, printed into yen by the Japanese central bank. It has already been stated that the banking system will be stabilized by the government in hopes of avoiding bank runs, and now, the Central Bank of Japan has pumped trillions of yen into money market funds.
The US Federal Reserve did this same thing during our own economic crisis, but went even further as they bailed out banks that committed fraudulent transactions as a result of their selling of mortgage backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and credit default swaps. This rescue of the fraudsters continues to this day as the Real Economy fails.
Japan’s reaction to their crisis has been immediate, and directed at fixing what has failed and what is required for its survival. No doubt, their economic stimulus will put people to work, it might even raise interest rates, and grow their economy, and their GDP.
Japan is controlling their stock market by keeping the vultures from moving in with short selling and speculative trading. They are doing everything that we did not do because our government is cowardly when it comes to the corporate elite who fund it, and make all the backroom decisions that ultimately become law.
Our crisis, which is not of the same magnitude, but extremely damaging nevertheless, has resulted in nearly 20 million people unemployed, underemployed, and no longer looking for work. That is around 25% of the workforce. Our citizens have lost billions of dollars in savings, and now, find interest rates near zero forcing savers to buy very risky investments. This is the design created by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration, as he followed his leader--LilBoyBush.
Their process has been to enrich the richest among us, forcing workers to take pay cuts as they give back wages and benefits, and to borrow in order to buy what they need. Our crisis continues to drag the economy down. The reason why auto dealers are selling cars is because subprime borrowing has, once again, taken hold in the auto industry. People are given loans who are basically not creditworthy borrowers, but are given them anyway. The lenders are then taking those loans and securitizing them, stacking them into tranches and slicing them up to collateralize them so speculators can gamble on their riskiness. The economic crisis continues with the same ‘ole bullshit that brought it down in the first place. Our officials have not learned anything.
But now, we may be witnessing the makings of a Black Swan event. Japan cannot now use nuclear power and may not ever rebuild these plants again. As a result, the price of oil will climb. Obama will likely take oil out of our strategic oil reserves and put into the US market to keep working Americans from falling further behind as oil prices rise. There goes the tax cut, folks!!! In almost an overnight event, oil prices will rise indefinitely.
Added to the oil price increases, is the decline of oil outputs, and the high costs behind tar sand oil extraction and deep water well drilling. Don’t forget the Libyan crisis, which Obama is ignoring for the most part.
As the price of oil climbs, usage all around the world will grow increasing prices of finished goods due to production, and transportation costs. Consumers will tighten their spending belts because gas tanks will drain their pocketbooks forcing other spending to shrink.
China may, too, find itself in a recession. Their budget deficits will be more commonplace. The global slowdown will once again be felt.
Bernanke’s banking and corporate liquidity stimulus package, called QE2, will have to end. The Obama administration will have to either fall into the Reichwing’s austerity neo-fascist program with budget cutting, and more, or fight back Boehners, McConnells, Scott Walkers and others who get hard-ons thinking about squeezing the working American and killing their prosperity objectives by instituting the Reaganomic Trickle Down scam, whereby the rich are rewarded with tax cuts, and government freebees, such as the Federal Reserve’s near zero percent interest rates, along with tax loopholes and the off-shoring of wealth, while pretending that that wealth funneled to the top will drip down to the rest of the population through constricted economic IV tubes.
Does the Obamadier have the balls to stand up to anyone? Those in the Reichwing, such as Huckabee, Gingrich, Santorum, and others who are engaged in a large circle jerk as they chant mantras like, “kill collective bargaining”, or “down with Social Security and up with fee based investment vouchers”, or “health care vouchers and death panel panels”. This is their Viagra.
Bernanke is in a box right now. He is pissing in his Depends thinking that he will have to raise interest rates. The gravy train to the corporate elite might be coming to a close.
Will China be ending their nuclear plant development? Will their oil consumption grow? Will their construction boom slow or end? Will they raise interest rates, too?
In addition to America’s economic crisis, is the economic drain we are experiencing as we use huge amounts of fuel, oil, and other resources in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on our bases all around the world. All that oil and fuel jacks up our domestic pump price, since domestic usage competes with the Pentagon’s need for it.
Japan will find itself with hot money cash flows as investors flee low interest rate nations, which are not creating employment growth. In the U.S., our production has become more efficient, whereby more is being produced for less of a cost, but corporations are not hiring, but instead, laying people off. The improvement in production costs is good for our GDP, yet the Reichwing wants to feed the predatory beasts, instead of slaying them and creating domestic demands, by producing more of what we import domestically. The Reichwing keeps stroking the budget deficit phallus, instead of realizing it is more about our rising trade deficit than the message in their fear-mongering speeches, which is designed to scare people into believing that budgets deficits are bad for the country during a deepening recession.
Our health care problem is not about Medicare or Medicaid, but about the massive rise in health care costs and how it continues to run away from our grasp. Social Security would be just fine had Reagan, and those that followed, not stolen what workers had paid into it through their payroll taxes and used those hard earned contributions to pay the wealthiest among us their sweet tax cut deals. The Social Security trust fund would be fine if a fix to repair it would be legislated.
For the U.S. to grow, and to increase its GDP, as well as to put people back to work, it must stimulate the economy as Japan will do: put money into infrastructure, railroads, transportation, sustainable energy, and more. The Obamadier appears to be afraid of his zoo keepers---the corporate elite financiers.
Will he break his chains and defy the jailers by doing what is required to rebuild the United States? Or, will he continue to lick the cash from their hands needed for his 2012 bid for re-election?
thanks for reading, jerry
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
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