naked capitalism

WalrusBank says:

On the economy going forward, check out Ben Bernanke’s “nuclear
option”:

http://changealley.blogspot.com/

Anonymous says:

“since Israel seized the area from Egypt in the 1967 war.”

Israel has been conducting an imperialist land grab for the past 50 years. The justification for the Israeli policy in Gaza is weak.

Like many westerners, I have a knee jerk distrust of the Arab world and a warm and fuzzy sense toward Israel as a natural ally in a region of utter darkness. The information I recieve about the cruelty and insanity of the Arab world has done little to change my mind.

How much of what I see is propaganda ? I don’t know. The press blackout reminds me that the message may not be accurate.

For now, I may continue blocking the image that sometimes creeps into my consciousness of the similarity between the Nazi SS in the Warsaw Ghetto and Israel in Gaza. For how long, time will tell. The Bernie Madoff affair might remind me to check what my friends are really up to.

Stephen Lins says:

Correct link to Panzer article:

http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2008/12/career-alternative.html

Correct link to article about GMAC insanity:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/gmac-0-subprime/

lineup32 says:

“There was no difference between the run up in the price of oil, homes, the stock market or any other commodities,” Wallace said in an e-mail”

Credit rationing has brought down the price of oil and quickly. The financial media narrative stories that are pumped out to support various speculative commodity runs have a similiar end: poooooooooof!

Anonymous says:

Cherry picked from the Huffington and Washington Posts’ News Stories:

Palestinians death toll has risen to 345 killed and over 1,600 wounded in the on-going Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Monday evening.

five Israelis have been killed since the Gaza offensive began Saturday,

After Israel completed its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza last September, ending a 38-year presence, Palestinians expected an explosion of commerce and opportunity in this sandy strip, which is about twice the size of Washington with almost three times the population.

But after the election in January of a parliament dominated by Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist, international donors led by the United States cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority. Israel stopped transferring the tax revenue it collects for the Palestinians, and the Palestinian Authority’s monthly income dropped from $150 million to $20 million or less, according to the United Nations.

Anonymous says:

Douglas said – “I thought this was a financial/economic blog. We can all go to other sites for the politics.”

Douglas did you notice the spike in the price of oil when Israel unleashed its overpowering and way out of proportion murderous attacks in the killing fields of Gaza? And did you notice that the trade in the tunnels to Egypt where Palestinians have to crawl like rats for their daily supplies to feed themselves and their children has been accelerated? And did you notice the drop in the dollar?

All life, including finance, is politics Douglas, and deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

Churchill and Truman knew that well.

i on the ball patriot

Anonymous says:

Douglas is part of the Israel PR machine that locates any negative news item and attacks the source. Always the same logic, repeat and repeat the sad part its paid for by American tax dollars!

Anonymous says:

Gazprom vs Ukraine. Siphoning off Russian gas destined for Western Europe has been going on since long before the end of communism. Ukrainians have a sense of entitlement that can be summed up in the saying “What is mine is mine and what is yours is mine also”. The whole swath of countries bordering Russia from the Black Sea to the Baltic are dysfunctional. Add the Czechs to that.

donna says:

5 Isrealis to hundreds of innocent Palestinians. Yet the Israelis are ever the “victims” of these attacks.

Perhaps it is time for them to ask themselves why.

Yves Smith says:

Sincere apologies for the bad links, probably the consequence of too much New Year’s Eve bubbly. Thanks Stephen for the providing the correct links. Fixing the post now.

Anonymous says:

Jmd “If this site is leaning in a pro-Palestinian direction, I will go elsewhere, along with many, many other jaded readers; “

Ms. Smith links to two articles critical of Israel for locking the media and humanitarian aid out of Gaza … and all of a sudden we have a website “leaning in a pro Palestinian direction”?

Not only that, but I don’t even see a “Hamas justification” here. As for the price of oil, a few seconds at google brings up a blizzard of hits:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23608732-details/Israeli+attack+on+Gaza+sparks+rise+in+price+of+gold+and+oil/article.do

10% is “negligible”?

Despite the claim the author of these statements is a “young, clear-thinking, RC, female attorney”, I can only conclude that Jmd is reading another website.

Douglas says:

All,
I was surprised at the vitriol my first post has unleashed. Interesting, nobody actually addressed the issues I raised. There is slaughter and persecution all over the world, every day. Seems you Europeans (based on the comments) don’t seem to mind much of it, other then when Israel does it. Certainly nobody remarked on any of the other tragedies whether large (probably more people died in sudan this week then gaza) or small (the daily slaughter of homosexuals, journalists, etc in most mideastern countries). To the extent that the Israeli strikes are effecting the price of oil, there are many thoughtful articles on this topic; however, they were not linked or mentioned.
As far as freedom of the press, obviously Israel has the only free press in that region. Most if not all countries place some restrictions during a war – dropping a bomb on a bbc reporter is not Israel’s goal. Finally, a brief look at websites for major newspapers, etc. clearly indicates that they have reporters in Gaza, some I am not sure what is the cause of the hysteria. Here is one example from the NY Times: Israel Pursues Diplomacy But Presses Attacks: Reporting by Taghreed El-Khodary from Gaza.
I am not going to respond to any more comments (or actually read them for that matter, as I will get my economic news elsewhere), I have a good life to lead.

Anonymous says:

Yves,

Thanks for the postings and Happy New Year! Step on any toes you want…even if they try to stupidly bite back.

Anonymous says:

Can I rant here?

I have recently found that Wells Fargo Bank in Washington State – and maybe beyond – is systematically and drastically reducing their credit limits across the board for credit card holders. My credit limit was recently reduced 75% (from $13,400 to $3,500) although my credit score is 724 and I have never been late on any payment in the past decade. I do not even carry a balance on this card, and I was a Wells Fargo customer since 2004.

So why does this bother me? Well because my government recently gave WFC $25 billion in government funds to increase credit to Main Street. When I went to close my accounts yesterday, I found that this is being systematically done across the board to all small business accounts of Wells Fargo. The manager at WFC told me of horror stories how a businessman checking out of a hotel found that his credit had too been drastically reduced and while paying for his bill the card was declined, the drastic reduction unbeknownst to him. Or a person with a $6,000 balance had their credit reduced to $250 and were consequently over their credit limit. I work with two other business owners here in Washington state that received the same for letter and subsequent reduction of credit.

Is this what the trillion dollar bailout was intended for? I personally work with many small business owners that rely upon credit cards, as banks have basically eliminated working lines of credit unless they are secured with hard assets (such as one’s home). Since credit cards are much more profitable for banks than other forms of credit, they basically have encouraged business to rely upon credit card to fund daily activities. And now these banks (at least Wells Fargo) are pulling the rug out from small businesses. Main Street, by all accounts, is {expletive}.

How can this practice by Wells Fargo be allowed? This is appalling. At least they can shore up their balance sheet and continue to benefit their investors and management through my $25 billion tax dollar subsidization. This is probably going on with other banks, although I personally have not experienced this with my other banking relationships (ie, Chase, BoA, USBank or Discover).

Here is a bit more of a rant on my blog:
http://b-hamster.blogspot.com/2008/12/wells-fargo.html
http://b-hamster.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-wells-fargo.html

Does anyone know about this? Does anyone care?

Thanks for letting me vent. Happy New Year everyone.

Jmd says:

This site has been getting a lot of press lately…see this week’s New York Social Diary…it would be a shame to see it slide into irrelevancy for many readers with gratuitous or one-sided posts like the one on Israel above in the manner of many, many other blogs into irrelevancy.

Keep up the coverage of human rights violations, but please don’t cherry-pick them. I think I’ve read about a dozen on Guantanamo, for example, but few on Zimbabwe, where the people now suffering really have not engaged in anything near provocative behavior. Get Jimmy Carter on the case immediately! Oh right…he is.

Glen says:

Couple more links for Yves et al;

“China’s manufacturing sector close to recession: survey” The CLSA China Purchasing Managers Index, a gauge of nationwide manufacturing activity, rose to 41.2 in December from 40.9 in November, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets said today.

A slight rise but nothing to cheer about.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24864970-5017997,00.html

And this clanger; “Share blame for global financial crisis: Citigroup” Speaking in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today program, of which he was the New Year’s Day guest editor, Sir Win said: “My view is that they (bankers) are partly to blame. There are people who feel remorse about this – there’s no doubt about it. Do they all? I don’t know.”

Hmmm, first Paulson now Bischoff. Is this a case of synchronised blame shifting? Looks like a big bank is about to go down but who?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24864807-20501,00.html

Anonymous says:

YK and others,

You guys need to get over yourselves. The latest moves by Israel do not seem to be pro-security at all, in fact the only purpose I can fathom is to box Obama in. And Israel is not tantamount to Judiaism. A lot of liberal Jews in Israel and here question openly whether the attacks will do Israel any good. They appear have lost sight of the bigger game.

This raises FAR more fundamental questions than Yves’ two tame links:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/12/31/opinion/1194836966228/bloggingheads-what-s-israel-thinking.html?hp

Anyone who tries to stifle debate or engages in ad hominem attacks general does not have much of a case (or is too lazy to make it). And I must say, objectively, that the people going after Yves on this one have made no substantive case, merely tried to slur her to get her to shut up. I find that offensive.

Anonymous says:

Rage on, Zionist spammers. The world won’t end when you take your nonexistent contributions elsewhere. What is going to end is Israel, just as soon as the USA goes BK. Unless you’re expecting China to suddenly start giving them money instead.

Anonymous says:

There are no sacred cows on this site. Why should Israel be one?

The bullying is wearing very thin.

john bougearel says:

The situation in Israel bears close watching by the financial community.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told ministers `This will be a long, difficult and painful operation.”

That will likely require us to re-supply them. If we re-supply them, the OPEC nations will happily oblige us with another oil embargo. And presto, crude oil futures have the potential of spiking back to roughly $75 faster than a New York minute. Oh, and if this does lead to an oil embargo, we would do well to remember the Dow plunged 20% in 6 weeks back in October 1973.

The powers that be may even encourage such a military engagement simply to obtain higher oil prices! In fact, they would be willing to sacrifice lives to get the price of oil back up. The specter of sacrificial lambs to goose oil prices does not sit well with me either, but I don’t believe oil-producing countries will care one iota.

Richard Smith says:

Jmd,

You may indeed be a young, RC, female attorney but I’m afraid you are a tidge optimistic about the clarity of your thinking.

Strip the ad-hominem arguments out of your comments and there is precious little left. Ad-hominem arguments are utterly irrelevant to determining the validity or otherwise of Sara Rey’s strictures.

If you need to catch up on why that is (to be honest, I’m surprised it wasn’t covered in your law course), I recommend the Wikipedia entry on ‘Ad hominem’, which is just a few clicks away.

You rather patronisingly admonish Yves not to decline into irrelevancy, which, given the contentlessness of your own comments, is splendidly rich.

Are you in fact not an attorney at all, but a comedian with a flair for situational irony?

Anonymous says:

Zeke,

A few missing facts in your presentation.

All the major actors, including the US and Israel (admittedly after US pressure, but they were officially on board) supported democratic elections for Gaza. It was not UN imposed.

Hamas was elected. Why? Reports at the time found that the big reason was the locals were sick of Fatah. It was seen as irredeemably corrupt. Hamas, by contrast, was perceived to be good at delivering social services. So the more aggressive position against Israel was NOT the main reason for electing Hamas (at least for most).

Hamas security forces also do not equal the Gaza population. Conflating the two is not helpful to discussion or to Israel in the long term. As with Lebanon, they will win the battle and lose the war.