Austerity doesn't work, but it’s being promoted as some sort of fiscal balm, ointment or cure-all. It is not discussed enough that government spending is part of the economy. A big part.
In the U.S. tax levels have dropped along with spending. However spending has a multiplier effect and is not analogous to household belt-tightening where income remains relatively steady.
Plate spinners at the financial institutions are trying to keep enough energy in the system, but the plates are wobbling. They’re gonna start falling. The banks are too powerful and need to be taken down and restructured. Bond holders and stock holders will need to take a bath in order to clean up the balance sheets. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
Stress testing U.S. banks was an effort to fool the market into false confidence. They continued to pay themselves huge bonuses and didn't improve their balance sheets. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
The big banks have knowingly and fraudulently gamed the system, stripping the middle class of trillions of dollars, and raiding the treasury to boot, by getting bailed out of their own self-inflicted criminal injuries. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
Foreclosure judges are now seeing the scope of the serious problems associated with mortgages transferred into securities. It used to be that if you or I got into financial difficulty your bank would make some sort of mortgage adjustment to help keep you in your home. Lenders used to prefer to recover half of their money.
Banks are violating their own contracts with robo-signing, fabrications and forgeries. Documents are being generated by banks that no longer exist. Because of this, many foreclosures are not valid. Judges used to view us mortgage holders as the problem, but then it became clear that banks have been providing false affidavits. Judges are now skeptical of bank foreclosure submissions. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
Countrywide had an internal investigator digging in to problems and found significant abuse. Cutting and pasting documents to make deals. The investigator was frozen out. Fraud IS the cause of the mortgage meltdown. The banks, not Fannie or Freddie, were systematically trading known, bad deals, making them directly responsible for blowing themselves up. Self-administrated risk management has not worked. Risk management = plausible deniability. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
The bottom is about to fall out of the 2nd mortgage market. HELOC's have lost value as a result of plummeting home values. They are essentially worthless. Banks securitized the first mortgages and have applied very aggressive debt collection on delinquent 2nd mortgages. US banks have yet to acknowledge the huge losses in the second mortgage market. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
BofA currently has a market value of less than 50% of their book value. There’s a way out, but it would involve dilution of the stock value and turnover of senior management. So they sell off parts of the business. Nobody wants to buy the crappy bits, so they sell the profitable bits and are left with the crap. If I needed cash I’d sell my best stuff to make money quickly.
The rich need to be saved from themselves. They're creating an environment of empty factories and empty office buildings. Income disparity is a real problem. Rich people save, and working people spend, but the working class is shrinking and the right-wing nut jobs think this is good for America. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
European leaders are now panicked. Large bank failures are imminent. The market is shaky and could cause a panic driven sell-off before the end of the year. The ECB could print money and monetize the debt, but the Germans are very afraid of hyper-inflation. They’ve been down that road, and it led to Hitler. But we're still fed this austerity bullshit.
Someone needs to take a bath, and I'm afraid it's going to be me....again.
