The times, they ain't a-changin'

Let’s see if we can add up all of the liberal change this new [i.e. Obama] administration has brought to economic issues so far:

1. The president has appointed the very same people who screwed up the economy to “fix it.”
2. Efforts to increase regulation of the financial sector appear to be in trouble, even as Wall Street continues to game the system.
3. Health care “reform,” with the public option in trouble, is beginning to look like “The Heath Insurance Company Relief Act of 2009.”

Don’t get me wrong. Obama has done a lot of good things and God knows he’s a thousand times better than what we had. Still . . . I can’t say I’m exactly pumped. Original post here.

Empty ships signal global economy still shrinking.

The largest ever gathering of maritime ships - bigger than the US and British navies combined - anchor empty and without crew off the coast of Singapore.

A couple of years ago those ships would have been steaming back and forth, going at full speed. But now you've got something like 12 per cent of the world's container ships doing nothing.

Some experts believe the ratio of container ships sitting idle could rise to 25 per cent within two years in an extraordinary downturn that shipping giant Maersk has called a 'crisis of historic dimensions'. Last month the company reported its first half-year loss in its 105-year history.

Read the piece here.

10% approaching fast.

Numbers don't lie ... or do they? Regardless of your particular lens, historic levels of unemployment are coming to the US.

The way I see it is that there are two main problems. The first is that the numbers are still rising at high speed, that there is neither an end in sight, nor anything that can stop these numbers from rising. The second problem is that the government, and in its wake the media, continues to downplay, embellish and, if you take an objective view, downright lie about the gravity of the situation.

Read the Automatic Earth piece here. The author has been eerily spot-on throughout most of 2008 and 2009.

Career Search 2.0

When you submit a résumé, three things happen. The hiring manager will look for you on LinkedIn to see what kind of endorsements you have. They’ll look on Facebook for pictures of you at drunken parties. And they’ll ‘Zillow’ your address to see where you live, the value of your property, how long you’ve lived there & if you can reasonably commute to a job.

So says Dan Voelpel. Read more.

BearingPoint files for Ch. 11

Makes me think if a certain Doors tune, but I do hope my many friends and former colleagues will be OK, as BearingPoint files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.

Stories here and here.

Harper propping up the big banks without debate in House.

Ottawa is putting more money into the banks on a per capita basis than Washington’s entire giant $700 billion bailout package. In that country, elected politicians got to debate and vote on the deal. In Canada, forget it. Parliament is closed.

...so taxpayers are giving $75,000,000,000 to the banks for a return on investment of half of one per cent, and for the highest-risk mortgages in the land. Last year the banks made a collective profit of $19,500,000,000.

Angry? Read more.

More doom & gloom - Google lays off 100 recruiters.

From the Vice President, People Operations on the company's blog:

We know this change will be very difficult for the people concerned, and we hope that many of them will be able to find new roles at Google. They helped build this company, new hire by new hire, and we are enormously grateful for everything they have done.

Read the ERE post here.

Nortel Bankrupt!

And the post-bubble disaster is nearly complete, as Nortel Networks applies for bankruptcy protection.

The company said the process will allow it to deal with its cost and debt burden, restructure its operations and narrow its strategic focus. While Nortel said it has about $2.3 billion in cash, it owes about $4.5 billion US in long-term debt.

Here's the CBC piece.

BearingPoint in the news

Not the desired start to 2009, but the forecast looks like more tough times ahead.
Read the Washington Post piece here.

Raining again (not Supertramp, either).

Play this all-too-real game of predicting the future

Q: What is Superstruct?
A: Superstruct is the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game. By playing the game, you'll help us chronicle the world of 2019--and imagine how we might solve the problems we'll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It's about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.

Visit/play here.

Harper's Auto-Pilot Economy [not] At Work

Government stewardship in today's economic climate? While asleep at the wheel, Stevie H has destroyed Canada's surpluses, eroded our infrastructure and exposed us to the risks of national privatization and closer financial ties to the US. All this while deregulating in Ft. McMurray and ignoring the urgent need to modernize Canada's economic strategies and priorities.

Read Dobbin's original piece in the Tyee.

W warns of long & painful recession.

It's getting so bad, it IS comedy.

"For anybody out there living in cave, let me just say this. Congratulations. You've apparently made the soundest real estate investment possible."
— Jon Stewart

"The point is this is one of the most important irrevocable economic decisions we will ever make. Let's make it in a state of panic."
— Stephen Colbert

D & G predictions for the Paulson Plan

The plan will not save the US economy, and it won’t solve the problems that require a salvation plan in the first place today. Instead, it seeks to re-insert virtual fantasy credit into the economy, taken straight out of the public trough, so that same public can continue to buy homes. But is that in the interest of the people? Home prices are far too high, when set against historical levels. The reason why they are so high is because of cheap easy lying virtual fantasy credit. And that needs to be restored, even though it is the very core of the problem. How is it in the interest of the taxpayer to pay far too much for a home?.

What the government is doing now is making sure that the biggest losses will fall on the taxpayer, not on the banks. That is the plan. The misery unleashed on the American people is hard to oversee, but it will be horrendous.

The story here.

A tale of two leaders.

Where, oh where, is America's Vladimir Putin, who will drive out the oligarchs who have stolen the country's treasure and debased its currency?

- Spengler, Asia Times Online, 9/23/2008. Read the piece.

No more denial, the sky is pretty much falling.

The global credit system almost grinds to a halt as yields on US Treasury bills reach zero for the first time since the Great Depression, 1934.

Reader's Digest version of the article:
* "Hank Paulson seems to be adding to the risk in the system," and
* "We fear that a virtual nationalisation of the financial system will now be necessary," both from Bernard Connolly, global strategist at Banque AIG.
* Also "China finances the US government. So as long as the Chinese are willing to accept an annual loss of 15pc on their holdings of US bonds in real yuan terms, this can go on, but the decision lies in Beijing. What is clear is that it will take the US decades to pay this off." - Charles Dumas from Lombard Street Research.
* And finally, "What we have seen so far is just a dress rehearsal for the deep recession that is coming. America is going to be losing 500,000 jobs a month. That is when we will see interest rates go to zero. The deficit will be covered with printed money as it was in Japan. The endgame will be helicopters full of cash dropped by Ben Bernanke." - Albert Edwards, global strategist at Société Générale.

The Harper economic record

My friends will know I am Green, but Dion is certainly on to something when he sketches Harper's record on managed (or mis-managed) economy.

In the first half of 2008, Canada has had the worst economic performance in the G8, and since 1991.

Since, well... Brian Mulroney!

Lehman Brothers --> Chapter 11

And so it begins (unless you count Fannie & Freddie), friends.
Let's hope the focus of both US and Canadian federal/presidential elections shifts to the economy. Even though it is too late.

Worried of collapse? Someone's compiled a survival list.

At some point, denial will transition into scrambling. If you want to be an early adopter of good 'eyes-open' sense, check out the list of 100 items to disappear first.