The Sun Came Up After All

How about that? The election is over and we're still upright and breathing. The sun rose and things are moving along just as they did yesterday.

From where I sit, and where I think a lot of my fellow countrymen sit, there is a profound sense of relief. Relief and a looking-forward feeling that we're not about to fall off the edge into a downward spiral of more regulation, higher taxes and greater government control over our lives. It IS hopeful in America because, after months and months of struggle, door knocking, phone calls, hard work and hoping, we have a man with a positive, hopeful, uplifting message for America.

Donald Trump has said repeatedly, in front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, that he will be OUR president. That he will work for US. That he loves America. That he will do all he can to protect our country and our best interests on the world stage.

I look forward to that. I look forward to looking up instead of down. I look forward to having a chance for a better quality of life, a thriving economy with higher employment. This is, truly, a new day and it is full of hope and the prospect of change we were promised more than eight years ago.

No matter what the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) says, there are tens of millions of people who are and who have been sitting on the sidelines, sometimes for years, who haven't been able to find work. They are the truly disenfranchised, the hopeless. Now, because of the programs and ideas Donald Trump has publicized, they can hope again. They, too, can look forward to getting back to work, to digging in and feeling that sense of well-being that comes from contributing to the greater good through the effort of their own labor.

It won't happen immediately, but you can already see the sense of relief, of looking-forward in the stock market.

Companies that engage in construction and infrastructure, the equipment manufacturers, the material suppliers, are seeing a bounce in their stock prices. There is anticipation that those will be needed - and those companies will again be offering employment opportunities. In a matter of months, I think a lot of the un-employed, the given-up, the under employed will begin to see the budding of a new economic boom.

The coal industry, the broader energy industry, the lifeblood of our country will start to resurge. Jobs will open - the high paying jobs that have been promised for years and years - will start to open up and that will benefit the workers, their families and their communities. People will have money in their pocket, not because of government largesse or theft from others in the form of taxes, but because of their own labor. For the honest, the willing, there is no greater sense of satisfaction than going to work, working hard and, when the day is done looking back and saying, "I did a lot today" or "I had a good day."

It has been a long time, too long, since America has had an opportunity like this. I am glad we finally do. I am glad the sun rose over America this morning and there is change in the air.

And, in the spirit of the day, the hope and the expectation, I'll leave it there.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Ladies, May I Have Your Attention For Minute?

I am going to speak plainly about Donald Trump and his alleged problem with women. Dead honest in my opinion: it is not his problem. It's ours, the women, who are the problem.

America has bigger problems than ugly words. These problems are real and have nothing whatsoever to do with 'feeling' or 'emotion'. They are existential and they are going to make or break this country in the next few years. Either America gets itself back on its feet or we go under. It is that serious in my view.

Are you better off today than you were ten or twelve years ago? I genuinely hope you can answer yes to that, but I sincerely doubt you can, honestly.

Do you feel more secure, as settled and as comfortable as you did ten or twelve years ago? Or are you like me and like millions of others like me? Do you, as I do, worry about tomorrow and next week, never mind next year or retirement?

Do you worry about your kids' future? Do you wonder if they're going to be able to live and work and enjoy their lives as you used to do?

What about your grandchildren? Are they going to live the kind of life you want for them?

Given these problems, don't we have bigger fish to fry than to worry about someone saying stupid or ugly things about people?

I don't like everything Trump says but I recognize an ass is an ass is an ass and he tends to hit that mark too often for my comfort, but then I look past it - to those big existential threats to our security and well-being.

You know the problems in your own life. Your home - probably still under-water compared to your mortgage and its value. Your job - are you secure, confident you'll still have a job a year from now? How's that retirement looking?

What about your kids? How are they doing? Did they go to college and pile up a mountain of debt and find a job in their field that pays enough for them to pay that debt down - or are they working somewhere in the service industry?

This country is faced with big existential problems, yet I listen to the chattering class on television and all they're talking about (so it seems) is Donald Trump's "trouble with women".

And what is that "trouble" do we suppose? Well I know exactly what it is. Women get upset when someone says something stupid or ugly. Or they get upset by it because they take it personally and then can't get over themselves far enough to recognize that an ass is an ass is an ass and what he says does not have to be taken seriously.

Given the real and existential problems in this country, does it really matter that Trump made ugly remarks about Rosie O'Donnell (who deserved them) or Carly Fiorina or anyone else? Aren't we bigger than that?

After all, if talking nice would solve all the problems in the world - hunger and unemployment and the housing situation and international warfare and trade and the like, hell, I'd be all over him too. But it doesn't and it won't.

The sad reality is that while words have meaning and they can hurt our feelings, those words cannot solve the bigger issues in front of us.

Yes, negotiation is a matter of words but I suspect, given the number of sensitive negotiations Trump has been involved with, he knows what words work and what don't.

Yes, diplomacy is a matter of words - but I am not looking for the next Diplomat. I am looking for the next President. I am quite confident that in the setting of delicate negotiation, Trump is perfectly capable of being delicate, of saying the right thing at the right time in the right way.

Personally, I do not give the first little rip about what Donald Trump says - he can spew ugliness all day long for all I care because when he stops talking, I do care about what he can do for this country if we give him a chance. And, based on the choices from this smorgasbord, he is the only person who can get things back on track and rolling again.

Given the big problems facing this country I ask you: do you really want more of the same or do you want something better?

Ladies, if you want more of the same, knock yourself out but do not whine around about how bad things still are four years from now. You will have asked for it.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Ya Know What, Jim? Yesterday Pissed Me Off

Jim Geraghty's dismissive post about Trump supporters being idiots and fools was snot. Pure and simple mucus that belongs wadded up in a piece of tissue at the bottom of a garbage can. And he's just the latest in a long procession of people who think and have written and said the same kinds of things.

What's infuriating is that none of these people have got the first foggiest clue about why so many people are backing Donald Trump.

Thinking about it here, on the receiving end, I got mad yesterday. Really mad because until he and his pinhead friends know what I and what people like me have lived for these past twelve years, he has no right in the world to dismiss us. Until he and the others understand how disenfranchised and disrespected millions of us feel, he would do really well to just shut the fuck up.

Sorry - I'm trying not to do that anymore because I have a bigger vocabulary than that, but that says precisely what I want to say.

Just. Shut. Up. And here's why:

I do not, I never have and I never will draw six or seven figures a year in salary. I make an honest wage, but it is a just-barely-scraping-the-sides-of-the-barrel and enough-to-barely-make-ends-meet wage. And it's not because I'm not good or smart or talented or skilled. It's because it's the best I can find in this economy.

I will never sit down in some fancy Washington or New York restaurant and scarf a portion of a $100, $200 or $1,000 dinner. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford it. I can't even save up for it because I don't have two pennies to scrape together at the end of a month - it all goes to pay my expenses.

I drive a twelve year old Ford station wagon with almost 150,000 on the odometer. I will make that car last just as long as I possibly can, not because I like it but because I cannot afford $200 or $300 or $500 a month in lease expenses. I can't afford to spend $8,000 or $10,000 or more on a 'new' used car, either.

I never have and I never will drive a Mercedes Benz or a BMW or anything other than a basic form of transportation. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. I can't afford it.

I am not quite sixty years old. I have worked since I graduated from high school in 1975. Aside being mainly unemployed for sixteen months, the longest time I haven't worked was the two years I took off to stay home with my daughter, before I had to go back to work to support the family.

If I did manual labor, I'm the kind of person who would have honorable calluses on my hands. I don't have calluses, but I do get up at 4:45 every morning and leave my house by 7:00 every morning and don't get home until 6:30 every night. I have taken one day off in the past year - for the birth of my grandson.

I am, and others like me are, the backbone of this country and its economy. Unlike the pointy airhead pundits who make a living writing drivel about what goes on inside Washington.

I, and others like me, work to help produce goods and services that have meaning.

At the end of the day - who cares about opinion? What does that do for anyone? I can't eat it or drive it or wear it - so why should people who produce nothing but hot air on a computer screen think they can disrespect me and others like me who actually produce things that have real meaning?

And we are the majority who are supporting Trump.

So now, Jim, given those things, given our honest labor that pays an honest day's wages, who the hell are you to call me and others like me idiots and fools?

And I'll take it further - you don't get it, okay. Here is why I'm supporting Trump:

In the late 1990's and through 2001, our family was solid middle class. We had a mortgage on a nice house in a nice neighborhood and were doing okay financially. I had a job that paid enough that my husband could stay home and day-trade, taking care of our daughter.

We decided to sell the house we were living in - it was really too big for a family of three, so we bought another house. We used the equity we had built up over the years and bought a slightly more expensive home - not bigger, not better, just more money because prices had gone up. The mortgage on our new house was manageable.

We were just like millions of other middle class Americans. Things were fine through 2005. By then, I had been at my job for ten years. I was earning enough that I could support my husband and our daughter. We could even save a little every month.

Then, in 2006, we started seeing signs the economy was changing. The day-trading had already gone by the wayside - I was the sole support of our family and I was getting nervous.

The company I had been with had its first layoffs in its fifty year history. In the course of twenty minutes, six people were gone. The survivors, me included, took pay cuts or cuts in our hours to keep things going. Gradually it got better and then 2007 hit.

The housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed in on itself.

The millions of bad loans that Congress, George Bush and Hank Paulson, driven by the Federal Reserve and the banking industry had palmed off on people who never should have qualified for loans came home to roost. No one was repaying the balloons on the loans they had taken out in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 after the banking laws were repealed by Congress. Together these characters, along with Newt Gingrich and Billy-Jeff and others in Washington had destroyed the fiduciary responsibility of the banks to protect their depositors' money.

The Washington insiders, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street had colluded together to create a devastating housing bubble. Those people who should never, ever, ever have received loans had received loans - often for the full value of the property they were buying. No job? No problem! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were there to provide the money needed - just ignore the fact that those institutions were, at the bottom line, publicly funded by other homeowners and workers like me.

In 2007 we elected a first term Senator from Illinois. This man had never run a company. He had never managed a company. He had never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, ever balanced a checkbook - but he was elected to the office of the President.

Immediately, he started blaming Bush for everything that was wrong - and that has not changed eight years later. He did nothing, materially, to change things, to make them better. He didn't consult with business people to figure out what they needed to make their companies stronger and more vibrant. He didn't do his job and work with Congress to re-institute Glass-Steagall and put in place laws that would hold the banks and investment companies accountable.

No! He bailed them out. He took whatever was left of our hard-earned money and handed it over to the too-big-to-fails that had created this mess - paying no attention whatsoever to the devastation that was taking place in the real world outside of Washington and New York. Oh, sure, he gave it lip service - but lip service doesn't keep a roof over a families head. It doesn't put clothes on their back, shoes on their feet and food on their table.

The economy continued to fall apart through 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 - more layoffs, unemployment soared, companies by the hundreds of thousands down-sized or just closed their doors. There were no new jobs for the people unemployed by the malfeasance of George Bush, Hank Paulson, Congress and the continuation of bad policy by the new administration.

But who cares! Let's get Obamacare going - never mind that it will destroy whatever small companies might be left in America. Who cares about the employers of millions of people or the millions of people who will lose their jobs because of the onerous requirements? I don't because it's my legacy!

Never mind that start to finish the vast majority of the American people screamed that we didn't want it - but it was shoved down our throats anyway - to the detriment of families and businesses and the medical care providers.

The company I worked for had more wage freezes and layoffs - 2008, 2010 and 2012. In the last, I was caught up. Eight people - almost the last of the non-partners / owners - were included in that layoff. I had been there for seventeen years. Some had been there more than twenty and twenty-five years. They had been looking forward to retiring in a few years and... wham! Unemployment, the potential of losing their homes, evisceration of their 401ks.

In eight years since that first term Senator took office, this economy hasn't even begun to recover. Regardless of what anyone inside Washington and the nattering class says - this economy has not recovered.

Unemployment, if you dig through the piles of manure the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the government cover it with every month, is horrible.

Do you realize that under current employment counting rules if a professional who is on unemployment works just one hour - just sixty minutes - in a week and is paid just $20 - the BLS counts him or her as employed for that week?

If someone works as a temporary employee - at one-half or one-quarter of their former wage - for just an hour in a week, they are counted as 'employed'.

How does that work? Come on! That's not a sustainable wage. That won't buy lunch in a lot of places in this country, so how can those people be called 'employed'? Yet they are.

For me, after losing my job in 2012, it took me more than two months to find even a $14 hour temporary job - less than half of what I had been earning, with no benefits - for two days.

And that wasn't because I wasn't trying. The day after I was told I no longer had a job, I put together my resume. I called the employment agencies - seven of them - and made appointments. That week after losing my job, I was in front of agency people, selling them on my skills, yet it took two months for me to find even a $14 per hour job.

I did well there. I did well enough there that that company specifically asked for me when they needed coverage the next several times. I had the same thing happen with other employers so by November, I was working fairly regularly.

Then I got lucky - so I thought. I got an offer - but they were going through an internal restructuring so it would 'be a few weeks' but I shouldn't accept any temp work because 'they might need' me right away. Eight weeks went by with me supporting my family on $11.50 per hour unemployment while waiting for this job that paid almost what I had been making at my last job. To me, given the economy, it was a good wait.

Finally, in January 2013 I started work and I worked until... sequestration. March 2013 began the government intervention that cost millions of government and government contractors their jobs - me included.

May 1st saw me back on unemployment, back to knocking on doors, calling the temporary agencies two and three times a week, spending hours every week cruising Monster and Craig's List and Indeed and company websites searching for anything that would pay even a little more than the unemployment benefits I was receiving.

In the meantime, the siding on our house began to rot - we couldn't afford to paint or fix it. Our bedroom window broke - we can't afford to replace it. The roof is on its last legs - not quite leaking but it will be in a year or two or three.

In October 2014 I became a criminal thanks to my federal government. Obamacare kicked in but I make too much to qualify for subsidies and too little to afford almost $900 per month in premiums plus the $6,000 deductible for my husband and me. This year, in my taxes, I "get" to pay a penalty for being uninsured. 

For nearly three years I lay awake at night, worrying - how am I going to pay the bills? Will I be able to keep this job or will I be let go? Will I ever find another job? How are we going to make it?

Now I have a job - it's a regular job but I am making thirty percent less than I made just four years ago. I still cannot afford those insurance premiums. I am still a criminal. I cannot afford to save. I cannot afford even basic repairs to my house. The value on the biggest asset that I own that is finally starting to look like it might go back to where we bought it twelve years ago but at this point, the only way I might realize that potential is if I throw about $60,000 that I no longer can afford into it for the repairs that have gone wanting for so long - $30,000 for new siding, $20,000 for a new roof, new paint and new carpet.

In the years since I lost my job in 2012 we have gone, as so many others have gone in this past decade, from comfortable middle class to barely making it. Even now, because I don't earn enough to be comfortable, we unplug appliances when we're not using them. We have taken light bulbs out of fixtures to save money. We don't run the heat until the house gets below sixty degrees. We don't run the air conditioner unless it's over 100 degrees outside. We don't drive unless we absolutely have to, because we can't afford it, even though gas is now at a reasonable price.

Before this mess began in 2006 / 2007, we could go out to dinner occasionally. Nothing big, nothing expensive, but we could. Now we can't. I honestly cannot remember the last time we ate out - and that last time was Jack In The Box. Not because we wanted to, but because it was all we could afford.

So before these erudite airheads tell me that I'm an "idiot" for voting for someone outside the norm, they should sit down and talk to people like me. They should walk the walk of a life like mine before opining on how "wrong" I am.

I am voting for Donald Trump because the same-old, same-old of Washington politicians and a one term Senator have not been good for me, for people like me, or for this country. I am desperate to try something - anything new and another one term Senator is not an option.

So take my advice, Jim - and pass the word to your buds: just shut up until you know what you're talking about.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Better Late Than Never for Jumping on the Trump Train

I was poking around on the interweb this morning and stumbled across an interesting opinion piece by Steve Moore - mostly of the Heritage Foundation, sometimes found on Fox. In brief he said: 'Republicans - Stop Hating Trump Supporters'

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/03/09/hey-republicans-stop-hating-on-trump-voters.html

Well it's about time, Steve! I won't welcome you into the party because you sound like you're refusing to cross the doorstep, but at least you showed up. If you do choose to sidle into the room, I won't tell on you.

Your post was good - and in clear terms sets on its ear the 'inclusive' GOP / Republican party brand the leaders of it have been trying to sell for the past couple of decades. It's obvious that these people, the Elites, Establishment and Donor Class, who are sneering down their noses at us out here in the hinterlands think we're rubes or idiots or worse. They're spending a lot of their time and a lot of their money vilifying We The People, making it as plain as the nose on your face that the Republican's 'big tent' is another Inside the Beltway Lie.

I'm pleased, though, that you're honest enough to admit that America, outside of Washington, is sick, tired, fed up with and disgusted by business as usual inside Washington.

Business as usual has included Republicans siding with Democrats on raising our taxes. Never mind that many of us have been out of work for a year or two or three, or that we've had to take substantial pay cuts in order to just find a job. And, if we were lucky, because of the mandates included in Obamacare, we could actually find a forty-hour per week job instead of settling for both that pay-cut and taking a thirty-hour job. Which is, effectively, another pay-cut.

Because of the Republicans and Democrats siding together with Obie-One against the American people, many of us have had to accept that thirty-hour work week with its associated pay cut and find another part-time job to make up the difference so we could try to maintain our lifestyle.

Yeah, that's right. We The People had too much time on our hands. Much better for us to work ourselves to death so Washington could tax us to death.

In olden days - before 2008 - there used to be a Middle Class. We used to be financially comfortable. We could take care of our kids ourselves, without government assistance or interference. We could take a vacation once every year or two, and maybe send our kids to college. We could even save some money for retirement.

Not any more. The Middle Class is gone. It no longer exists because so many who used to be Middle Class have hit poverty and have sunk through that line. It makes me wonder - was that The Plan all along? Devolve the Middle Class to serfdom? If it was, it sure as hell has worked in stellar fashion.

Thanks to the Republican party in the form of Bush II and Hank Paulson, our economy and our job market fell into the toilet in 2007 and 2008 and was flushed in 2009 by Ben Bernanke and Obie-One and Congress. And despite all the happy-talk from the pundits, we all know it hasn't recovered. It hasn't even come close to recovering for the majority of us.

Many people who used to be Middle Class are now dependent on government. Whether it's unemployment benefits or Welfare, there's little difference. Other people are supporting those who government mandates made unemployed.

Obie-One, while he was running for office, promised Hope and Change, jobs and a return to prosperity.

Well, Hope has been gone for about ten years now because the politicians have continually lied to us and, when they stopped lying long enough to draw breath, they raised taxes.

Change has happened because the economy is in the pit and people have lost their jobs, their businesses and their homes.

The jobs we got were largely low-paying part-time food service jobs.

Prosperity is gone from sight.

It's been ten long years since the first canary snuffed it - when the economy turned over and began its terminal descent. Now, ten years later, many highly educated, highly qualified people still can't find work in their field. Kids graduating from college can't find work in the fields for which they studied.

My niece and nephew - both college graduates - work at Costco. They're not working in the fields for which they studied and trained, for which they took out college loans, built up debt and went to university for four years. They're working in the service sector instead of the professional sector. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture? And they aren't unusual. They're actually pretty representative of people in their age bracket.

Because Obie-One and the Democrats, colluding with the Republicans in Congress, made it harder and harder for companies to operate here and compete over there, across the water, companies left. Jobs that paid good wages went with them, and unemployment increased.

Ford is leaving. Nabisco is leaving. Carrier is leaving. Pfizer is leaving. And those are just a few.

Sequestration? I and a bunch of other people lost jobs at a company for which I worked. It was a small division of a major company, but when thirty people, about fifteen percent of the workforce in that division were laid off because of government interference, it doesn't bode well for people's feeling about government.

There is a whole long list of major companies, big employers that used to offer good jobs with good wages and benefits, that have moved off-shore available from various places on the internet.

Domestically, big companies are still laying off thousands of workers. In January alone, more than 75,000 people lost their jobs. Granted, about a third of those were seasonal workers hired for the Christmas season. Still, two-thirds, more than 50,000, were Wal-Mart and Macy's employees who were laid off because of store closings. Not just reduction in force, but closures of existing stores because they're no longer profitable. The oil industry is laying off thousands - 258,000 in 2015 alone, and more are to come in 2016 based on industry projections.

So, yes, Steve. We are pissed off. We have heard politicians make promise after promise after promise after promise. All the while we have been hoping that just once they weren't lying through their teeth and time after time we have realized that their words were empty. The people who paid for the politician's campaign pulled the strings and we got screwed again.

It's good to know that at least one talking head inside The Beltway is getting that first whiff of Folgers. I just hope others will wake up, too, recognize how furious and frustrated the American people have become over the past decade. I hope they'll stop trashing us because I, for one, resent it.

We will put up with a lot, but not with this. Which is why we're out in force voting for Donald Trump. Better a peaceful revolution for all, rather than an explosion of anger that could lead to ugliness and all sorts of bad things, so stop poking the beehive.

Yes, we're pissed off because the lifestyle that we used to take for granted is gone. No more vacations. No more going out to eat - even for special occasions. And, yippity-skippitee! The Republicans voted with the Democrats to raise our taxes! Thanks, guys. Just what we need when we're down.

And I'm still supporting and voting for Donald Trump - and what's here is just the tip of the iceberg against which the Titanic of the United States of America has foundered.

Have a marvelous day.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Another Case of What Happens in Asia...

Just in case you missed what happened in China and on Wall Street yesterday, here's a recap. Come on, give it two minutes and I think you'll be hooked.

Over the weekend, the Chinese government elected to devalue the yuan against other currencies. This means that their export products are more affordable in other markets. They just got cheaper.

In response, to keep the balance closer to "normal", other major currencies followed. It's called 'a race to the bottom' and, in 1989, when Japan, which was then the number one export economy in the world changed it's monetary policy, it triggered a regional financial crisis. One that Japan is still feeling. Wiki has a good article on that (Google Japan Lost Decade and you'll find it), but now back to this.

China's economy, the largest in the world based on population, is slowing. Because the global economy has weakened in the past eight years, people aren't buying as many Chinese exports. As a result, China's debt to GDP ratio is climbing. Weakening their currency is one way of making those exports more affordable thus more competitive against other, similar products. Sell more product, the gap between GDP and debt goes down.

Of course, this puts more pressure on the companies that have debt payments that are valued against the US dollar or the Euro or other, stronger currencies. It makes it that much harder to pay their debt because, in effect, that debt just increased.

Unfortunately, the money games had the effect of creating near panic in the Shanghai stock market. There have already been problems in Shanghai with investors losing their shirts, their pants and their homes since property was recently deemed acceptable as collateral for traders whose losses exceed their monetary worth.

The Shanghai Composite - the Chinese stock market - soared to new heights in June. It reached it's highest level ever, and then it fell. Between June and last Thursday (August 22), the Shanghai Composite lost 30% of its value. On Friday, it fell another 4% and on Monday it dropped another 8% for a whopping "correction" of 42%.

As they do, since they're so closely linked through computers and trading, the world markets followed. Overnight between Sunday and Monday, the NYSE futures were down more than 500 points. As soon as trading opened Monday, the Dow fell almost 1,100 points. Other markets had similar losses but... never fear! The money printers are here!

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has promised to toss $1.5bn into the Chinese market. That means that there are no new investors. It isn't "real" money that's being generated to hold this balloon up. It's money being printed by the Central Bank system to avoid a worldwide financial panic and/or economic collapse. The effect of this infusion of cash is that the value of the market is artificially pumped up.

Underneath the smoke and mirrors, nothing has changed. There is no fresh infusion of investor's money - it's just more debt. That's what's scary to people who watch this stuff happen and know what's going on. While it looks good on paper, inside there's nothing. The fundamentals that support our currencies and markets are nothing more than helium, hot air and perception. So long as we don't look down, or look behind the curtain, we'll be fine.

That news did what was intended, however. Once China staggered back, the Hang Seng, TOPIX and other Asian markets followed, recovering all or almost all of their losses, too, and soaring back into the stratosphere.

What the vast majority of people watching don't know, is that it wasn't just the PBOC that fired up the printing presses. Everyone did it, and that's why the New York Stock Exchange rebounded nearly 800 points yesterday.

It's called POMO - Permanent Open Market Operations and, in short, it means that when the US stock markets drop, the US Treasury is required by law to buy securities - stocks and bonds - to keep things afloat.

Yep, you read that right: the US Treasury is, by law based upon Central Bank directive, manipulating the stock market.

Don't believe me? Well, read this from the Federal Reserve of New York's webpage:

Permanent OMOs: Treasury

The purchase or sale of Treasury securities on an outright basis adds or drains reserves available in the banking system. Such transactions are arranged on a routine basis to offset other changes in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet in conjunction with efforts to maintain conditions in the market for reserves consistent with the federal funds target rate set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

On March 18, 2009, the FOMC announced a longer-dated Treasury purchase program with a different operating goal, to help improve conditions in private credit markets. (Note: Ever hear of the bank bailouts?) 

On August 10, 2010, the FOMC directed the Open Market Trading Desk at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to keep constant the Federal Reserve's holdings of securities at their current level by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities. (Note: Here's where they pumped up the real estate market in the midst of the housing crisis - after most people had already lost their homes to repossession and foreclosure.) 

On November 3, 2010, the FOMC decided to expand the Federal Reserve's holdings of securities in the SOMA to promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate. (Note: Another Federal Reserve acronym. SOMA means 'System Open Market Account' and it's a means of managing currencies - the US dollar, the Euro, the yuan...) 

On June 22, 2011, the FOMC directed the Desk to continue reinvesting principal payments on all domestic securities in Treasury securities to maintain the Federal Reserve's holdings of domestic securities at approximately $2.6 trillion. (Note: In other words, if the NYSE / DOW et al. collapse, the US Central Bank and US Treasury are prepared to throw up to $2.6 trillion dollars at it.)

And here's the link to what I just quoted and noted:  

http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/pomo/operations/

Based, on that, the Federal Reserve started with real estate after the collapse of the housing market following 2007 / 2008. Then, seeing how well that worked, they expanded it to securities - stocks and bonds.

Anytime you see a big market drop followed by intra-day bounce back to or above the low, you can count on it's being POMO'd. Whether it's here, through the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, or in Europe through the European Central Bank and its treasuries, it's the exact same thing.

It's fake, not real, not real investors jumping into the fray. It's tax dollars - your money and mine that we have paid to our government out of our paychecks.
 
Unfortunately, and I mean unfortunately all of this market manipulation - the POMO of the Central Banks - just delays the inevitable.

Somewhere sometime someone will look down, or examine the man behind the curtain and, when they do, economies will start falling the way Greece fell. At that point, there probably won't be anyone, like the ECB, to catch them. The world will be in a world of financial hurt. One that will make the Great Depression where money had almost zero value look like child's play.

So, that's what happened and it's worth doing some reading so, when the time comes, you're not standing there like this guy:

Sorry to burst your bubble or start your day on a downer, but being prepared is better than not.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Oh, Yeah - I almost forgot.

The other day I threw out a great big word that is the equivalent of stealing: rehypothecation.

Then I never got around to explaining, precisely, what that is or why it’s important. However, given what’s happened in Europe relative to the European Central Bank and Greece this week, I think it’s worth examining it more closely. Particularly since we, the EU and the United States, are just like Greece, only on a larger scale.

Greece got into trouble because its government borrowed far more than it could ever hope to pay back. No one asked for collateral – except promises. Nothing was there, supporting the monies borrowed. It was air and promises, smoke and mirrors. Just like the underpinnings of the US economy – a gigantic Ponzi scheme.

Do you remember Jon Corzine’s firm, MF Global – the one that was caught out stealing investor’s assets that had been entrusted to it?  In case you don’t, here’s the nutshell version from the Wall Street Journal on April 17, 2015:

MF Global filed for bankruptcy in October 2011 after customers balked at the firm’s big, risky bets on European sovereign debt. About $1.6 billion in customer funds were found to be missing, though customers have been reimbursed. The firm has agreed to pay $200 million in civil fines. Jon S. Corzine, MF Global’s former chairman and chief executive and a former New Jersey governor, still faces civil charges from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for failure to supervise.

The lawsuit had said MF Global used customer funds to meet the increased liquidity demands of the firm’s bets on European sovereign debt. MF Global didn’t have sufficient internal controls to deal with that, a deficiency that PwC ignored, according to the lawsuit.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/pwc-to-pay-65-million-to-settle-lawsuit-over-mf-global-1429302372

What MF Global did is what your bank does every day of the week; except on a larger scale, with a greater risk exposure. After all, your bank is federally insured. Brokerage firms are not. They took investor’s money and used it to make risky gambles – wagers or bets or whatever you want to call them – on a variety of European countries.  When the brokers at MF Global lost on the bad bets that went south, they scrambled. They took – rehypothecated – money from other investor’s accounts. They were chasing the losing bets with more money in an attempt to recoup.

It didn’t work. Instead, the money entrusted to MF Global by the individual investors was lost, gone.

So, what’s the point of this, you ask? Simple – it’s all about Greece. Greece is a microcosm of us, economically. It’s about the fact that the EU and the United States is doing precisely what MF Global did, only on a much grander scale.

We, like MF Global, are throwing good money after bad in an effort to somehow fix what’s broke.

What led to the Greek banking crisis and their most recent bail-out by the European Central Bank is the over-borrowing against non-existent collateral. This is precisely what the US and every other government on the planet has been doing for forever.

Governments borrow based on future tax revenue. It’s like commodity trading – pork belly futures and such – puts / calls, shorts / longs, all of which are common terms among commodity traders.

Governments do not make a salable good or provide a service that can be bought by a consumer. They are an entity there solely to spend and to give stuff away. In order to do that, they take in taxes and allocate it as they see fit. They’re really good at spending but God forbid anyone ever asks or expects them to cut costs. Instead, they bet on the Come, like any good craps player, anticipating the next big payout.

Greece borrowed to keep its government going and its people happy. The money was spent, they needed more. They borrowed and they borrowed and now they’ve borrowed some more. The problem is there is no chance in hell that they will ever be able to repay what they have borrowed.

Their population is aging. More people are retired or unemployed than are working. The majority of those who are working, work for the government which is in the business of giving stuff away, not of manufacturing or producing a salable item or commodity. Their Gross Domestic Product – the measure of salable goods produced to generate income for the nation – is abysmal when compared to their expenditures. In sum, they are spending profligately while earning nothing.

This is exactly what the United States and every single other government on this planet is facing and doing. Some are using the mirrors and smoke more effectively than others, but the Ponzi scheme is getting shaky.

To keep a Ponzi scheme going, the scammer starts off by convincing one or two or three people that he has a great idea. He’ll assure the marks that if they trust him and give them their money, he can make them a lot of money in return. Inevitably, in any Ponzi scheme that’s at all successful, it sounds so good it must be true. People hand over their money – sometimes everything they have – and the scammer uses that money to attract more people.

‘Tell your friends. Tell your family.’ says the scammer. And they do.

The trusting marks spread the word and, so long as more people enter the pool, the scammer can keep the illusion going by paying out the early investors and keeping them happy. Eventually, though, the house of cards gets wobbly. Payments are shorted or missed.

Enough new people aren’t signing up to keep the thing going and, ultimately, it collapses under its own weight. This is precisely what is happening in Greece.

Not enough young people are coming up and working to pay their taxes to support their elders who are retired and have government guaranteed pensions. Because the pensions are guaranteed, the government has to keep making payments on them, and on the other social services that have been promised and are expected. Because the government can’t generate enough of its own revenue, and the people aren’t generating enough in taxes to support the Ponzi scheme, they have to borrow.

They borrowed and they borrowed and they borrowed some more. Now, where is that money coming from? It is coming from the governments of the European Union and the United States of America – through the Central Banking system and the Federal Reserve.

Where is that money coming from? Why, it’s coming from your bank and the sweat of our collective brows.

The little kids – Cyprus, Greece, Iceland and Ireland – have already fallen and scraped their knees. Mommy and Daddy in the form of Germany (at the head of the EU) and the US were there to pick them up, dust them off, kiss them and make it better. So it’s (temporarily) all good for them. But what will happen when it’s us, as in US – the United States? Who will be there to pick us up, to kiss our cheeks and dust us off? It’s worth thinking about because, eventually, the buck will stop and the only question will be: who’s holding it when it does?

Once the buck does stop, and paper money because what it’s worth – zero – what will happen? How will you, with paper that is worth no more than its intrinsic value, pay for the goods and services that you need to survive?

Will it be like Weimar?

Will it be like Zimbabwe?

Will it be like Iceland that told the EU to get stuffed, reverted to their Krona currency, and is now in a hyperinflationary state?

Cost of Living in Iceland - Updated June 2015 

Whatever else it will be like, it is worth thinking about because, if you aren’t prepared when the time comes, you will be in a world of hurt as you try to figure out how to buy food or pay for things you need to survive.

Me, you ask? Nope – I’m fine, thanks. I’ve already given it a lot of thought. I started in 2006 when I sat up and started to pay attention. In 2007 my fears were confirmed. In 2008 it was hunker down and start thinking – hard. So I’ve already made my plans. If it never happens in my lifetime – great! If it does, as I expect it will, I’ll be ready.

When? Hmm, that’s hard to predict.

In 2007 I predicted something bad would happen between 2015–2016. I said, at the time I made that prediction, that by 2016 our standard of living would look like ‘Somalia on a good day’. Things here have worsened noticeably since then. Unemployment is still high despite what the Bureau of Labor Statistics is saying, salaries are still low, there’s still a huge shadow market of foreclosed properties hanging out there, so it’s not as bad as I anticipated but it’s still not yet peachy.

However, I didn’t count on the determination and resilience of those in charge. Now I’m guessing 2017 – 2018. Maybe so, maybe not but time will tell. In the meantime, think about it. Consider your options and figure out what you’ll do if the value of the dollar goes to zero.

Based on this happy chat, I'm not going to say 'have a lovely day'. Instead, I'm going to suggest you think about what you'll do if the currency crashes and the house of cards comes tumbling down around our ears.

Best~

Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories