Global Economic Crisis

First there was Greece, then Ireland and Portugal, and now Spain. The last of the PIIGS nations afflicted with massive sovereign debt is Italy. Massive public debts and annual deficits, its bonds periodically hovering at the seven percent dangerous  yield level on long term sovereign debt, the Italian economy is a basket case. As with the other  PIIGS countries, it is kept fiscally alive only due to massive Eurozone intervention, including the European Central Bank (ECB) and the disenfranchised German taxpayer. But with Rome, there is one other big reason for Italy’s economic woes. It’s judicial system is a joke.

An Italian court has just ruled that six geological scientists ( and an ex-official of the government) are legally culpable for failing to predict the deadly  2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, and sentenced each of them to serve six years in prison for manslaughter. Scientists going to jail for failing to predict an earthquake? What about astrologers and soothsayers? No, the Italian system is OK with magicians and wizards being unable to predict seismic phenomena, but if you happen to be a geologically trained scientist who fails to ascertain with exact precision future earthquakes, then you are going straight to jail. By comparison, Russia’s Putin sending Pussy Riot to a penal colony comes across as less ridiculous than this disgraceful display of warped humor by the Italian justice system.

The imprisonment of scientists harkens back to a time when magicians would be burned alive for failing to stop the Black Death during Europe’s Dark Ages. This issue, however, goes beyond ethics and scientific freedom, including the freedom to make mistakes in analyzing natural phenomena that unfolds independently of man’s will. Science and technology is about all that is left in a European economy which, like America’s has undergone thorough deindustrialization. In a Europe and America where bankers and financial speculators can destroy the global economy without any risk of criminal sanction ( though with the assurance of a taxpayer bailout) but where those working in scientific research can be imprisoned for failing to be infallible, the inexplicable decision by an Italian court will not encourage talented Italians to enter the scientific field.

How ironic it is that financial oligarchs and their enablers in public office, such as central bankers, can escape accountability for their role in creating the greatest economic and financial catastrophe since the Great Depression of the 1930s ( though many experts have demonstrated that the crisis now afflicting the global economy was eminently predictable) while seismologists and scientific researchers are sent to prison for lacking divine prescience. The Italian court’s judgment is supposedly based on the scientists failing to adequately assess the risk factors in engaging in the inexact science of earthquake forecasting. If the same court had applied the identical  verdict and sentence towards economists and financial advisors with similar faults in weighing risk factors in formulating their forecasts, perhaps it would not come across as so bizarre. However, by placing the blame for a natural disaster’s tragic outcome on scientists, Italy’s courts have offered an unexpected but very eloquent explanation for why the third largest economy in the Eurozone has become so dysfunctional. Quite simply, the power structure in Italy has gone completely mad.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

The chief economist for the International Monetary fund, Olivier Blanchard,  relayed the annual World Economic Outlook from the global organization at its meeting in Tokyo, which was somber in tone, and dire in its implications. All earlier growth forecast across the board were reduced, including emerging markets as well as developed economies. The current global growth forecast is 3.3 percent in 2013, down from an earlier projection of 3.5 percent.

The most alarming forecast by the IMF is for the Eurozone, which overall will experience zero growth. The major factor for the Eurozone’s flat growth projection is the fiscal consolidation occurring in many Eurozone economies, made essential by the acute sovereign debt crisis afflicting the monetary union, according to the IMF.

The transcending implication from the IMF’s latest forecast: the artificial “recovery” from the global economic crisis, which originated in 2008, is faltering. Furthermore, the supposed recovery was entirely dependent on massive sovereign debt financing, and with the inevitable fiscal consolidation now occurring, those economies are now at stall speed, and ripe for a double-dip recession, which is already occurring in many Eurozone economies.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics latest jobs report suggested  114,000 non-farm jobs were added in September, while the national unemployment rate dropped from  8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. With the U.S. presidential election only one month away, the Republicans naturally claimed that something was fishy about the jobs report. Just as naturally, the Obama administrations maintained that the BLS statistics are compiled by non-partisan professional bureaucrats. So, what’s the answer?

They are both right. The BLS numbers may be honestly compiled, but they are based on abstractions and sampling assumptions, and are frequently corrected long after their original release. Furthermore, the numbers being argued about are the U3 data, which is an incomplete measure of unemployment in the U.S. economy. The more reliable U6 data, which includes part-time workers unable to find fulltime employment, is still well into double digit figures.

The more interesting aspect of the latest LBS data is this; even if the 114,000 new jobs figure is correct, it is below the level required to match new entries into the labor force. In other words, the U3 (and U6) rate should have risen instead of declined. Why didn’t it? Simple explanation: the long-term unemployed are being “removed” from the statistical  measurement of the labor force. If the BLS considers you a “discouraged” worker, you are no longer compiled under the data for unemployed workers. This may look more positive for the upcoming presidential election if you are President Barack Obama, but it does nothing to facilitate economic growth.

There is another dimension to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data which demonstrates its utter irrelevancy to the overall health of the economy. The numbers in the BLS report, or the claims by the Obama campaign regarding total jobs creation since the president took office, not to mention GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s boast that as president, he would somehow “create” 12 million new jobs, miss what is most relevant to a comprehensive economic recovery in the United States.  The real issue is the decline in purchasing power by the U.S. labor force, concomitant with a parallel increase in economic power of a very small financial oligarchy. As is well know by labor statisticians, frequently the new jobs created (or promised) are actually lower paying fulltime jobs, or part-time positions with significantly reduced levels of compensation. The cumulative impact  of this phenomenon has been the erosion in the  size and collective purchasing power of America’s middle-income  labor force, leading to weaker consumer demand and a collapse in housing values.  Neither President Obama nor Governor Romney has on offer a realistic and cogent plan to address the real core issue underlying the factors that have left the U.S. labor force diminished not only in its employee count, but more importantly, in its financial capacity. Until the latter issue is addressed, all the promises made by American politicians for a future economic recovery are political rhetoric and nothing more.

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

Wall Street Kills-Official Trailer

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.