Welcome to The Now

 

 Wall Street is investing on the desperation of Americans, and pawn shops are replacing banks:

 Ben Norton discusses:

 

 

 

 

 

 Honestly, once the conversation shifted from developing nations using it to celebrities endorsing it in a Super Bowl commercial, I began to get really skeptical:

  "Trumps Always Chickens Out" is the phrase people on Wall Street are using to describe President Trump's handling of tariffs, and not surprisingly he took offense to that. For someone who has half the American politicians scared, about a fourth neutered and the rest bidding their time while the rest of the world looks on in confusion, you would think Trump would act less like a sore winner. You would think. Sadly, no amount of victories or accolades or attention is enough; all it takes is one slight (real or imagined) to invoke his inner victim.  

 Am I talking about a recession? A depression? Mass unemployment? Rise in cost-of-living? More bank bailouts? I'm talking about all of it. Or some of it. Or a combination. Something is coming, and Americans are not being properly prepped. This isn't about stoking fear; it's about being informed enough so that when something does happen, your actions are being governed by fear. Let's start with this news from Business Insider, " The dollar falls behind the yuan for the first time in Chinese cross-border transactions ": For the first time ever, the yuan has eclipsed the US dollar as the most used currency for Chinese cross-border transactions. The yuan's use in cross-border payments and receipts rose to 48.4% at the end of March while the dollar's share slid to 46.7%, according to a Reuters calculation of data from China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange. In 2010, the yuan's share was nearly 0% while the dollar's was 83%, according t...

  Nancy Pelosi is problematic . 

Some socialism provides confidence to capitalist markets. Employers who know their help is covered by healthcare, especially if they don't pay for it directly out of their own bottom line, gain confidence.   ...Public education providing skilled workers instills confidence in employers and job creators. ...Safe streets with good cops instill confidence in investors and business owners. ...Excellent roads and bridges and transport infrastructure instill confidence in the market as a whole.   Until the 19th Century capitalists figure out that, in a world of billions of consumers, not millions, their arcane models are no longer viable, we will suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  -- " jep07 ,"  replying to the TPM story about Wall Street's take on the presidential election.

Apparently it was Wall Street, not the Tea Party .

He's right, this should be obvious .

Good point.

" The stronger players are positioned to take advantage of the crisis and they will dominate clearly in the near term ."

Like SiCKO, only about Wall Street .

Can't say I'm surprised : NEW YORK (Reuters) – American International Group (AIG.N), once the world's largest insurer, owes around $10 billion to other financial services firms for trades that have gone sour, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition on Tuesday. The report, citing people familiar with the matter, says the trades have not been explicitly disclosed before, and are not covered by terms of a current $150 billion U.S. government rescue package. I don't get this; the bailout was supposed to free up money for all the banks and make currency flow again...right? Right ? In the market equivalent of shoveling cash under the mattress, hordes of buyers were so eager on Tuesday to park money in the world’s safest investment, United States government debt, that they agreed to accept a zero percent rate of return. The news sent a sobering signal: in these troubled economic times, when people have lost vast amounts on stocks, bonds and real estate, making a...

I have a question for those who believe that Church and State should be merged: how much would you contribute to the various bailouts that have been going on and proposed lately? America is in an economic downward spiral. Our housing industry, Wall Street and the auto industry is/has been in shambles. People and businesses alike are going bankrupt or at the very least filing. Corporate America has come to Congress (aka, the State) for financial help. For the most part, they've all gotten something. So it's not far fetched to think that if Church and State were one, that the various religious factions would be asked to fork over some dough as well. So: how much of the Tithes and Offerings would be acceptable to help Corporate America get back on its feet? What about the Building Fund? I'm not just talking about money to help one person who lost their job because of this mess, or even a small community, I'm talking about AIG and Ford Motors. So again, to the proponents of...