The
young are not listening. They never did.
Next
Up. Or Down:
The banking crisis is nine years old and going strong – especially
in Europe, where it has morphed into a crisis caused by central bank
attempts to quell the crisis. Deutsche
Bank is
the poster child, but there are a lot more waiting in the wings, for
it's pretty hard for a bank to make money with interest rates at
zero; they, like the economy, need growth, preferably exponential
growth. Without growth and without interest income, how can anyone
pay back a loan? Ah, the game is afoot.
Even
More of the Same:
“If
you liked the dysfunction, gridlock and petulance of the 114th
Congress, then you are going to love what’s in store for the 115th
Congress”
Wish
List:
Turkish President-for-life Erdogan wants the EU
to give Turks visa-free travel by the end of the month. I want a
pony.
Fingers
in the Dike:
Germany
wants
to send immigrants back to Greece and the
Greeks to
then send most them
back to Erdogan.
Language
Arts:
Environmental officers in Africa are going to drop “trained dogs
from helicopters” to “tackle poachers.
I
don't think 'tackle' accurately describes the intended effect.
Corrective:
Would someone tell the Trump
camp
that Ms. Clinton
held public office for only
12
years, not thirty, and
only 8 of them in a lawmaking capacity.
Lawyer
Full Employment Bill:
If you or someone you know has been harmed by an illegal US invasion,
say of Iraq or Afghanistan, or drone strike, say in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, of similar, or been rendered,
tortured or put on a no-fly list, call the number on your screen.
Asked
& Answered:
Can
an atheist lead a Protestant church? Oh,
yeah. You'd be surprised how many ministers lose their faith as time
goes by.
Graveyard
Whistling:
Given that he lost a billion bucks in one year and hasn't paid
federal income taxes for a generation and he still
won't release his tax returns, whatever in there is obviously worse.
Arguably much worse.
With
God On Our Side:
Russian and Syrian planes dropped barrel bombs on two of the largest
hospitals
in rebel-held Aleppo including
the 'cave' hospital.
Porn
O'Graphic:
What were we thinking?
A
Parting Shot:
4 comments:
The world of 'I' remains relatively tiny when we are young and most of us were preoccupied with our own needs and interests because we [foolishly as it turns out] believed 'the adults' were minding the store.
Funny how 'parental love' can turn so quickly into 'abandonment' when we learn things aren't as we were taught.
Worse, this realization doesn't come until later in life although it does account for the Angst felt by the young as their attempts to get their proverbial 'feet under themselves' are repeatedly foiled.
Again they blame themselves when the fact of the matter is they have been sabotaged by 'other people's parents' and the 'pay to play' legal system.
Um, in a totally unrelated matter, is today's snapshot a microscopic view of sperm or are they the weirdest pussy willow's ever?
Todays vermin are sort of very much over-achieving aphids... sort of ants or such that have these giganormous white frothy outpourings.... On sycamore tree.
«it's pretty hard for a bank to make money with interest rates at zero»
That common idea is based on a confusion: that there is only one interest rate, and that rate is the fed funds target rate.
But actually there are many different rates, in two in categories: "passive" (or "cost of funds) rates paid by the banks to those that lend to them) and "active" rates (collected by the banks from those the banks give loans). The difference between them is the "spread".
The fed funds target rate is indeed near zero, and thus the "cost of funds" to the banks is near zero. But "active" rates are as a rule far from zero for most borrowers. Only very large very safe corporate borrowers suffer near zero "active" rates, and those haven't borrowed from banks for a long time. So banks are still making a lot of money from pretty large spreads with many customers. Plus banks make a lot of their money with trading, which is financed by borrowing at near zero "cost of funds" rates.
It is only in the ridiculous "neoclassical" style models that there is a single interest rate on "money" and that coincides with the "rate of profit".
There are some interesting graphs here (figures 1 and 2) about the rather different levels of the federal funds target rate and other "wholesale" rates:
http://noisefromamerika.org/articolo/why-the-fed-s-zero-interest-rate-policy-failed
Of course "active" rates paid by retail customers like ordinary businesses and individuals, such as credit card borrowers, still involve colossal spreads.
Some of us read you for links like the Zodiac thing, but then, every other day or so, you slip in things like Hillary couldn't possibly have affected public policy except as a formal public official. We are not Trump supporters/believers but have brains and memories and other sites to view. Please knock off the crap.
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